The Volunteers
by riot3672
Summary: Struggling on the streets of Sokovia as the winter closes in, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff volunteer for Strucker's human experimentation part out of vengeance, part out of patriotism, and a good chunk out of necessity. But, when they get settled in, something amazing happens, something horrible happens, and they're changed forever. Stronger, more powerful, more fragile.
1. Braving the Cold

**A/N:** Welcome to my first attempt at writing a multi-chap Marvel fic. Basically, everything will be as canon-compliant as possible with the exception of a romantic relationship between Pietro and Wanda, and things may or may not diverge as it gets closer to mixing the timeline with AOU. Basically, think of this as _The Dictator_ but with Marvel characters, same tone. Hope y'all enjoy!

* * *

Pietro

Everyone said change happened when one goes out and does something, but for Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, their change came while walking down the street. At twenty-one, the twins were beyond their days of ripping open trash bags behind restaurants and huddling under porches for survival, but even Pietro's high-risk, low-pay job he'd gotten hadn't fully pulled them out of poverty. Not enough for a home at least, so the twins walked. The tent, now useless in the Sokovian winter, clanged against Pietro's back, each shot of pain with a shot of regret, each period of relief a shot of reassurance. Either way, whether the tent was a good idea or not, they had to find an actual building before night.

"Are you sure this shelter is still here?" Pietro asked between ragged breaths.

He watched as Wanda shoved her hands deeper into the coat he'd snagged for her. She was nervous. "Yes. It was here, I saw it less than a week ago."

"Less than a week is decades in Sokovia."

She removed a hand to tug on his sleeve. "Come on."

They quickened the pace, the chill getting stronger in the air.

"Do you want me to help you with the tent?" Wanda asked.

Protect your sister. Be strong for your sister. Papa's words never left his mind, influencing even the smallest of decisions. Hard to believe it'd been over ten years since his death.

He shifted the tent to his left shoulder, leaving the right free to ache. "I got it. Just focus on finding the shelter."

Wanda did as told, retreating into the little thinking space Pietro had observed since their parents had died. She used to be so talkative back then, but now it seemed like he could only fish her out on occasion. He'd asked about it, feared about it—depression he couldn't afford to medicate, suicidal thoughts he couldn't stamp out—but whenever he asked, she'd just say she was thinking. He watched her as they walked, that constant frown, that tiny wrinkle between her brows. When she thought, was it ever positive? Or was she truly only happy when he prodded smiles out of her?

"You have the most beautiful smile," he found himself saying as the decay of Sokovia passed them.

She glanced back, brow fully furrowed. "What?"

"You have a beautiful smile," he repeated. "I just wish I could see it more."

"I don't just give them out."

He smiled. "There's nothing shameful about being a smile slut."

She smiled back. Not fully, not with teeth or a sparkle in her eyes, but the right lip movement. "You're such a loser, Pietro."

"Technically speaking…"

She pushed his sore shoulder, and it knocked him far more off balance than it should've. She grabbed his shirtsleeve, steadying him on the icy streets. "You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Rough patch, new center of gravity."

"Forgot your penguin walk?"

Pietro laughed. "Yes Wanda, I forgot my penguin walk."

It was how Mama used to explain walking on streets in the winter.

They kept on walking. Pietro swore he could feel the temperature dropping increment by increment. Like chasing the sun.

"You know what we should acquire next?" Pietro said.

"What?"

"An iPod. iPhone. Whatever. I can't stand only being able to listen to whatever top forty Sokovian hits they play in shopping centers, if that. Besides, it'd probably be a better way to learn English."

"Okay, but if we got the iPod, how would we get any music? We don't have a computer to upload anything."

"Wi-Fi hotspot, and then we buy credit card gift cards." He grinned. "Or just steal one that already has a lot of music."

"And charging?"

"We're allowed in Starbucks." He sighed. "When spring comes, we're sneaking into more concerts."

"Jesus Pietro, you're really hung up on this, aren't you?"

"I feel like I'm losing my humanity. Like I'm becoming a savage."

Wanda raised a brow. "Interesting thought, isn't it? That we have to pay to reach any level of human fulfillment. Sure, it can cost nothing to fulfill basic human needs, but any level up, and you need money."

God, he hated not being that kid who took everything for granted sometimes. Growing up on the streets, there was nothing more painful and infuriating than watching other teenagers with their trendy clothing, ear buds hanging out, able to talk about American movies or gossip about teachers, knowing they had at least three levels of human need lined up at home. The worst part was, somehow, sneaking into high school parties and getting smashed or jumping the fence at concerts didn't let him forget. Every second he'd pretend that he was a normal person, something would remind him—his clothing would be too worn, his hair would be too greasy, he'd get too drunk because he hadn't had food beforehand.

And that was ignoring the fact that Sokovia was growing harder and harder to live in as the weeks passed. If it got impossible to survive, he and Wanda would be dead.

"Promise me that if we do get music, you'll learn English by listening to rap music," Wanda said.

"How else would I learn English?"

Mama and Papa had been teaching them English before they died. Something about it being the language of the world. Pietro could remember agreeing for some dumb reason like being able to watch American movies without subtitles. He and Wanda tried to practice, but it wasn't like one of them had more knowledge than the other. They were more or less stuck at survival English with such heavy Sovokian accents that it wouldn't be discernible.

"Hey Pietro?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we'd leave Sokovia if it gets bad enough?"

It was hard to imagine that Sokovia would realistically get any worse than a shell destroying their home and killing their parents, but the country certainly wasn't doing well.

"Yeah," he answered, knowing full well that that dream was impossible without money.

Wanda suddenly stopped, nearly knocking Pietro off his feet again.

"What?" he said.

Wanda just shook her head. "It's gone."

Pietro grabbed Wanda's hand automatically, even before taking a look himself. Gone was an understatement. Not only was the establishment gone, but the whole fucking building was gone. Rubble. His stomach twisted thinking about whether or not there were corpses buried down there. The last time the two of them had taken refuge in that shelter, it had been full of broken families—fatherless, motherless, often orphans like him and Wanda. How many eight-year-olds clutching onto their infant siblings had died when this place collapsed?

Wanda sunk to her knees. "God, Pietro, what're we gonna do now?"

That shelter was the last one Pietro knew of. It was too late for proper searches for a good squatting place. But, in this cold, he supposed they'd have to risk crashing some violent gang's acquired headquarters.

This country was horrible.

He pulled Wanda back onto her feet and took her hand again, squeezed for good measure.

"C'mon, maybe we'll get lucky."

And, at worst, they'd set up their tent and hope to not get frostbite.

Someone was looking out for them, because they soon happened upon a parking structure. Half the lights in the thing were broken, but it wasn't covered in ice and there weren't any security guards around. He and Wanda picked a corner and set up their tent.

"See? We're doing okay," Pietro said as he pulled out the cans of food they'd bought—yes, bought, he was proud to say—that morning.

Wanda pulled out the lighter. Normally they'd just eat it how it was, but having something warm, even lukewarm, seemed necessary that night. Seeing that lighter reminded Pietro how much he could go for a cigarette. He'd only had a few while sneaking through parties, but he'd certainly passed gagging with one in his mouth. Not addicted, though, thank God.

They punctured holes and did their mediocre cooking job. They didn't exactly had enough money to pay for superfluous snacking, and Pietro was starving. It was an odd comfort actually having to cook two cans of food. Those days when he'd give food scraps to Wanda when his stomach was gnawing itself from the inside out were still crystal clear.

They ate in relative silence, and brushed their teeth with the same little toothpaste tube and cheap toothbrush, and slinked into the tent.

"I love you, Wanda," Pietro said.

"I love you too." She tugged him toward her with a crooked finger under his chin. "What can we do tonight?"

Condoms and penetrative sex were as rare sweet treats as new clothing, and that night wasn't one of those nights.

"No condom."

He heaved the words out like a sigh. Aside from a shoulder massage, he was crazy to be inside her. But, there was certain risks they couldn't take. Wanda getting pregnant would be a disaster, and that was ignoring how nightmarish being pregnant while being homeless would be for her. Being sexually frustrated was a price that had to be paid.

"We'll survive."

She grinned as she spoke, and he found himself smiling right back. He crushed his lips against hers, fingers on the soft skin of her face, securing her. He deepened the kiss, moving his hands down her neck, under her jackets. Her breath hitched a little when he first touched the sensitive skin on her waist, and it sent a jolt down to his cock. This was not going to be easy.

He pulled away from her tongue and kissed her neck. She moaned, squirmed, leaned her neck back just the way he loved. Someday, he always told himself, he'd make her orgasm from just kissing her neck.

He felt her hands lock onto the waistline of his jeans, and his cock shot up like a fucking rocket. God, he was so quick, like a little boy. He hated that, how they hadn't grown a normal sexual relationship because of the homelessness. He had great stamina in all other aspects of his life; he knew if he didn't have other worries, he could blow her mind.

He tugged her hands away.

"I want you against me. God, I want to feel how wet you are with my cock, not my hands," he muttered.

"I know, 'tro. I do too." She pulled him closer to her, vice grip. "Let's at least pretend."

He started thrusting, making sure he landed each blow right against that well-protected clit. He shut his eyes and went back to kissing her neck, hitting every erogenous little spot. One hand snaked into her hair, pulled at it, massaged her. The other played with her breasts through the clothing and bra he was too wired to remove properly. She'd moan and sigh, grind right up to him. For a few minutes, as the pleasure came in swells, the wave growing bigger and bigger, her warmth everywhere on him, he forgot that they weren't actually having sex.

He tried so hard for her to keep it together, to hiss every dirty thought on his mind in her ear, bite and kiss and caress her until she forget herself. And, honestly, there was no better feeling than when she shuddered under him, squeaked out his name, clutching onto him for dear life. He slipped down into ecstasy right after her. The relief was almost as pleasurable as the orgasm.

He exhaled, barely muttering a, "whew." They made eye contact and giggled together.

"Not bad," she said as they pulled apart.

Not bad. He'd love doing anything so close to her, but in all honesty, the skin irritation and having to squirm out of his cum-stained underwear wasn't the greatest after-sex experience. He watched as she did the same, pulling off her cheap underwear. Black. Always black. She always said it was a dignity thing, something about every pair of panties she owned also having to be period underwear. One day, he'd buy her some beautiful lingerie. Also, he couldn't help it, but he got a glimpse at her lady bits. They'd had to throw away their last razor after it had completely rusted over, and her dark hair was just as coarse as his. Maybe it was a good thing they didn't do oral.

They tossed their dirty underwear into a corner of the tent, pulled on their spare pairs, and crawled back together.

"Flip over," she said.

He did as told, and she started massaging his aching shoulders. "Thanks."

"Course."

#

Pietro awoke suddenly the next morning, to the sound of footsteps and a rap on the tent. His heart started hammering, always ready for the stress. He peeled away from Wanda and fished his knife out of their stuff. He really hoped the other guy didn't have a gun.

"Excuse me?" said a voice from outside.

Pietro allowed himself an increment of relief; at least it wasn't someone wanting to kill them. But, it could still be a security guard.

He checked himself, made sure he was decent, and opened the tent door.

The guy outside was heavily layered, but not in the way homeless people were. Plenty of trimmed facial hair, decent gloves, non-threatening eyes.

"I recognized you and your sister," the man said. Okaaay. Pietro fingered the knife in his pocket. "You two are always at the protests."

Pietro nodded. He and Wanda had made a few acquaintances from the protesting they did against Stark Industries and the Sokovian corruption, but he didn't recognize this guy.

"Have we met?" Pietro asked.

"I don't think so."

Wanda peeked out.

"Do you want something?" Pietro asked, growing impatient.

The man pulled something out of his coat pocket. "I can't imagine you two were having that much fun last night. Being homeless sucks." For a moment, Pietro fucking swore the guy glanced at Wanda's breasts, as if to say and so does the sex. "I work as a recruiter for a scientist named Wolfgang von Strucker. Very highly regarded in the international scientific community. We have a base up outside of the city."

Pietro had seen the building from time to time; it was quite something.

"Yeah, and…?"

"Well," he handed Pietro a flyer. "I know you two aren't happy with Sokovia right now, and Strucker just began a new program. He's looking for recruits to join a special branch of the military. Have you heard of Captain America?"

Was it possible not to? The guy was in folklore and celebrity gossip even in Sokovia. His father owned some trading cards, and every TV he'd passed a few years back had been plastered with the Avengers' faces. With Tony Stark's face.

"Yeah."

"It's the same concept. We want to make super-soldiers. But to fight here, to fight for Sokovia and everyone who's suffered because of what the Avengers have dug up."

Wanda walked up, close to Pietro. "Is it dangerous?"

The man shrugged. "Not really. Strucker imagines at worst that subjects would just reject his experiments. Maybe a few sick days, but nothing horrible."

"What would volunteers get out of it?" Pietro asked. "Why are you asking us? I'm sure there are thousands of more qualified candidates at the local high school."

"We want people who are passionate. If the experiments are successful, you would be trained as soldiers. This isn't a free upgrade. Who's more passionate than kids who've seen the horrors of this country and fight every day for it, even if it's hard?"

He glanced at Wanda. Something about this didn't feel right. Not at all.

"I don't even know your name, and you think I'll agree to be experimented on?"

Pietro waited for the man to leave, but he made no moves. "If you volunteer, Strucker will provide you food, clothing, shelter, and anything else necessary for you during the experiments. After that, he'll leave you with a salary. If you do qualify as a soldier, you will be paid, housed, fed, and given whatever you want. You would never be fired, and would get every benefit a solider could get anywhere. You would never live in poverty again." He glanced around at Wanda. "Strucker is looking for both female and male volunteers." The man smiled a bit. "In fact, when I told him that I knew some twins, he said he'd pay extra. He'll give you two million rubles each just for showing up."

Holy shit.

Holy shit. Combined, that was a high-living salary. They could buy a house, a car, whatever they wanted.

They could leave Sokovia.

He looked to Wanda.

"We're in," Wanda said.

Four million rubles.

Enough money to give his sister and him the life Tony Stark denied them eleven years ago.

And, if all went well, maybe they'd even be able to confront him themselves.


	2. Back to School

Wanda

Wanda had always been in awe of the research center in the Sokovian mountains, and just the sight of it growing closer as closer as she and Pietro shared a rocky jeep ride with a recruiter had her shaking like an excited child. Something felt right about this. She didn't know what exactly, but this—this had to be destiny somehow. Activists dreamt of active opportunities for change like this. Homeless youth prayed for salvation like this. She didn't recognize the name Strucker, but she bet working with him was a priceless opportunity as well.

She glanced over at Pietro as they ran over a particularly bad bump. His hand shot out and just barely protected his head from knocking against the car window. They made eye contact, she offered him one of those smiles he always wanted her to hand out, but he didn't smile back.

"Carsick?" she asked.

Finally, he snapped out of it, furrowing his brow. "Me?"

"Yeah. You look upset."

He pushed his hair out his eyes and shrugged. "I'm just tired." He paused. "What do you think he wants with twins?"

"Seeing if us being twins changes any results in the experiments?"

"Doesn't that only work with identical twins?" Wanda shrugged. "And why use the word 'experiments'? Isn't it called trials or studies when it's human participants?"

"You choose now to scrutinize."

"Hey, we didn't sign any contracts. We're just scoping out the offer."

"Four million rubles."

"If this fucker starts trying to sew animals parts onto my body…"

"Says the guy who super-glued knives between his fingers and had to get them surgically removed all because he wanted to be Wolverine."

"There is such a big difference between gaining indestructible wolverine claws and having a monkey tail sewn onto your chest."

She hated to admit it, but she was a little nervous too. The initial recruiter, the one she at least knew by sight, had left them with a new worker, a German-sounding man named Dr. List. No first name, just Dr. List. He explained that he'd been recruiting at the protests for weeks, and that she and Pietro were his last recruits. The best ones, he said, smiling about it. Dr. List believed these experiments could make all the turmoil go away, just like that. Wanda couldn't say why, but it made her feel more nervous, not less. What were they going to do to them?

Dr. List escorted them into the building, had attendants take the backpacks and the tent they'd had no choice but to bring with them. From there, he led them through the maze of the facility, past scientists in their white lab coats, past groups of men wheeling strange-looking weapons in and out of rooms, and even some more official-looking men, people in suits listening to scientists speak in what Wanda assumed was German. But, no other recruits.

They took an elevator to the top floor, and went into what must've been the nicest room in the entire facility: lacquered concrete floor, thick, dark wooden tables and leather-bound chairs, artwork hung on the wall. Dr. List motioned for Pietro and Wanda to take a seat, and he pulled a third chair around the other side.

"Herr Strucker will be in shortly," Dr. List said.

Wanda glanced down, and noticed an emblem painted onto the corner of the office owner's desk. It was circular, with some kind of red octopus-looking thing, a skull with six hooked tentacles around it. The cleanest cut monster she'd ever seen.

Herr Strucker was just as clean cut as his emblem: tailored black lab clothing, close-cut dark hair on a receding hairline, but younger looking than Dr. List. He wore a monocle of all things, and Wanda wondered if it was for decoration or if it was actually useful.

He smiled at them, and reached out to shake their hands. Wanda and Pietro stood and shook the man's hand.

"I'm Baron Wolfgang von Strucker," he said, his voice soft, whispery even, with the slightest German accent. "You two must be the famous twins Dr. List told me about."

Famous? All they did was participate in rallies.

"Pietro Maximoff," Pietro said, holding heavy eye contact.

"Wanda Maximoff," Wanda said. She tried doing as Pietro did, but the best she could manage was making eye contact with his monocle.

Everyone took a seat. Pietro's hand was shaking, and she'd bet money that his casual resting his right ankle on his left knee was forced to appear casual. She crossed her legs, hoping she could keep them from bouncing.

"What do you plan to do to us?" Pietro asked.

Baron Strucker glanced at Dr. List. "As I'm sure my associate has explained, we're trying to make super-soldiers, ordinary people molded into the powerful beings the Avengers have on their side: Captain America, Iron Man, even perhaps the green monster they release every once in a while. If you want to get specific, we'll be using a sort of serum. One or two injections, and then we'll watch to see what happens."

"And we get paid regardless of that? All the housing, accommodations, and benefits mentioned still stand?"

"Of course. Four million rubles for your participation, and we'll house, feed, and clothe you until you're no longer of service to us." Baron Strucker paused. "I want you two to know upfront that no one else is getting paid as much as two are. You'll meet the other volunteers later today, and we'd appreciate you not mentioning it."

Wanda furrowed her brow. "Why are we getting paid but they're not?"

"Because you're twins."

"Not identical, though. What use are fraternal twins?"

Baron Strucker sat back in his chair. "Twins have always been a curiosity for both scientists and practitioners of magic for as long as humanity has existed. Surely you two know the significance of twins in, shall we say, less precise disciplines such as astrology?" They nodded. "Twins play a huge role in mythology with good reason. Why do two humans come into existence at the same time, exist before life together? What does it mean that they possess an almost supernatural sense for one another, able to sense pain and distress of one another in a way that would be considered otherworldly with any two other people?" He planted his folded hands on the desk. "You see, the serum we're working with isn't of this world. It's a science so impossible for us to grasp that it may even be called magic. I believe this treatment works off the science we don't understand, and in the universe we don't understand, twins are significant. I cannot do these experiments without knowing for sure."

Not of this world? What did that mean? Was Captain America's serum not of this world? He'd survived that, but this?

Baron Strucker's expression softened. "No need to be frightened, my dear. We'll take excellent care of you two, and you'll help us save the world."

Pietro slipped a hand over hers, and she willed herself to relax.

Dr. List stood up. "Let's go get you two settled in to meet the new recruits. Herr Strucker will speak to them later."

They thanked Baron Strucker, and Dr. List led them down to a long room lined in twin beds, some already wrinkled, others still pristine, with clothing stacked at the feet of the beds. Dr. List motioned toward two open beds next to one another.

"Change into the uniform whenever you can. Just out that door is a lounge and cafeteria. We have about thirty volunteers right now, and they'll be happy to meet you two. Meals are served for an hour starting at six, twelve, and six. We'll be speaking again at eight."

Dr. List left, Wanda and Pietro changed, and they walked into the lounge/cafeteria together, hoping to catch the tail end of lunch. Lunch. God, that sounded strange. They hadn't had a scheduled meal provided to them with expectation for another scheduled meal five hours from then since those few weeks in foster care as children.

Having kitchen workers with their hairnets and indifference having her and Pietro pick between two options for every station reminded Wanda of primary school, and it did help her relax. Hell, she was excited again. Baron Strucker was taking care of them, years after she'd given up hope that that could ever happen again.

She and Pietro easily found seats in the quarter-filled cafeteria, sitting off to one unoccupied side of a long bench-like table.

"Maximoffs, is that you?"

Wanda and Pietro looked up, and spotted Anna. She was right around their age, but if Wanda recalled, the girl was educated. High school or university, Wanda couldn't recall. She was one of those privileged who gave up everything to fix the world. The type of person Wanda normally would've envied, but the girl was too kind to hate. It really was like returning to school again.

Anna slid across the length of the bench until she was next to Wanda. "I'm so happy that you two found this program as well."

Pietro was, incidentally, too busy stuffing his face to say anything, so Wanda took up the friendly twin position. "How long have you been here?"

"I was recruited a few weeks ago, but most people showed up this morning."

"Is there anyone else from the protest regulars here?"

Anna glanced around. "I saw Ivan about an hour ago, and that young married couple, Edgar and Veronica. A few familiar faces as well."

There was something unreal about all this, about being in such an important and unusual place with people that Wanda knew but really didn't know. Would she learn more about them as the experiments went on? It would almost be like building up a family, especially if they were all training to be soldiers.

Ivan slipped in seemingly like a ghost, giving Pietro a hard slap on the back as he slid in. "Look alive, Pietro!"

Pietro nearly choked on his food, and friendly-pushed Ivan nearly off the table as the color returned to his face. "Fuck with someone eating and you'll get fucked back, Belyakov," Pietro muttered.

The conversation was surprisingly shallow. A lot of "what've you been doing recently," "how'd you meet List" and "have you heard of Baron Strucker." She and Pietro finished eating far sooner than the others, and they took the opportunity to check out the lounge.

"Guess we passed the base of the human fulfillment pyramid," Wanda said.

He shrugged. "Regular meals. Ask me again once our shits become regular again too."

She pushed him, turning a little red. Smiled like a twelve-year-old boy. "Shut up!" He wrapped his arm around her, grinning back. "Fine, 'tro, you stay down there with your shit. I'm moving up." She held up her index finger. "Core needs." Raised her middle finger. "Security of employment, family, and place." Raised her ring finger. "Fulfilled familial and romantic relationships." She half raised her pinky. "All we need is some self esteem and achievement. The level after that is nirvana."

Pietro shook his head. "I don't think you read that pyramid right, but okay." Pietro paused for thought. "Wonder if he'd give us condoms…"

She gave him a look. "I doubt that's a necessary part of these experiments."

He pointed to her. "Hey, that's a core need. How're you gonna get to nirvana now?"

The two of them lounged around and idly chatted with some of the other volunteers for the hours before Baron Strucker's meeting. For what could seem like a totally unassuming man, Baron Strucker commanded attention. Everyone seemed to shut up and look to him like trained dogs.

Baron Strucker's speech was similar to what he told Wanda and Pietro before, but spoke more of abstract concepts, about benefits that came from self-fulfillment and service rather than money. He didn't mention the magic, and gave the "experiments" a much more scientific feel. They'd go through tests the next day, to test if they would be able to proceed to the next round. Physical and mental. The day after that, they'd begin. It would be a surgery-like experience—no food or drink twelve hours before, and they'd have several days of bedrest to recover afterwards. He wished them all luck.

They came for Pietro and her about an hour later.

"Baron Strucker would like to speak to you two," a well-pressed man said. They shrugged and followed the guy right back up to Baron Strucker's office, only the escort held Wanda back from entering the room. "He's doing individual interviews. You'll go in shortly."

Pietro gave Wanda a shrug and walked in. Without many other options, Wanda found a seat and focused on a patch of the nearest wall. She was too intimidated to make eye contact with Baron Strucker's worker anyway.

She'd always hated these times, with Pietro out of her grasp and her forced to do nothing but think. All it reminded her of was all the times Pietro made her stay at their hideout while he scourged for food as children. Even in these circumstances, her stomach clenched automatically, waiting for him to return. He's right there, she told herself. And you're going to give yourself an ulcer. What level of human fulfillment is that?

Pietro soon returned, and Wanda entered Baron Strucker's office.

"How are you, Miss Maximoff?" Baron Strucker asked.

"Well, sir," Wanda replied as she took a seat.

He smiled. "Great to hear. Has everything been up to standard?"

Wanda shifted in her seat. "My standards are pretty low, but everything's been great."

"Perfect." He paused. "Tell me about yourself, Wanda. How did you become so involved in the protests?"

She wished she knew what Pietro said had. Was she supposed to just spill her guts to this guy?

"My parents were killed by a shell when we were ten. It landed in our apartment during a family dinner, and they went through the floor, buried in the rubble. Pietro pulled us under a bed, and a second shell landed meters from us, but it never went off. We laid under the bed for days before the rescue crew could get to us, and when we got out, we were nearly non-functioning. They threw us in foster care, but we were too scared of being separated, so we ran away. We've been living in the streets ever since. We've just been fighting to make our country safe again, so no other kids have to go through what we did."

Baron Strucker nodded, his expression soft again. Almost—she was crazy to think it—paternal.

"Pietro mentioned Tony Stark."

She scowled. "His company made the shell that killed our parents and traumatized us. He's a face in a war without them. I know it's not right…"

"You have every right to hate Tony Stark."

Wanda looked up, made eye contact with him. "You think?"

"Absolutely. You two deserve justice. Let him know who you are, and what he did to you."

Wanda leaned forward. "You think that's possible with what you're gonna do?"

Baron Strucker smiled. "Yes."

Wanda leaned back into the seat, mouthing, "wow." She looked up. "What happens if we don't pass the tests tomorrow?"

"They're not necessarily for our volunteers to pass and fail, but rather for a baseline for the researchers. We imagine the changes brought on by the serum will be physical, so we need to start somewhere."

"Okay."

Baron Strucker smiled. "You've got something special in you, Wanda Maximoff. I can already tell."

She knew it shouldn't matter, but no one had told her that before. She smiled.


	3. Preparations

Pietro

Pietro couldn't remember where he was when he woke up, fear icing through his veins when he couldn't feel Wanda's warmth. He bolted up, eyes flitting around the room against a bad case of head rush.

"You okay?"

He turned to Wanda as she laid on the other half of the bed they made pushing their two cots together. He nodded; he supposed he wasn't used to having such a big bed.

"What time is it?" Pietro mumbled as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Eight." The room was still dim, but only about half the beds were occupied. "You awake enough? It's going to be a long day."

Memories from Pietro's talk with Strucker returned. The interview had been so odd; they'd talked about why Pietro had agreed to join the experiments, and the two of them ended up talking about Pietro's former work as a child gymnast before his parents died. Sure, the guy wanted to prod further, but Pietro only let people in so far. It was taxing enough to think so long about his childhood. The conversation had puttered into Strucker giving a blow-by-blow for the next day: training and tests until the late afternoon, and scheduled appointments to get the first dose of the serum all throughout the evening and next morning. Strucker had told Pietro that he'd go in around seven, and Pietro had insisted that Wanda go in with him.

Pietro tossed his legs over the side of the bed. "Yeah, I'm awake. C'mon, let's grab breakfast before people come in and start realizing how much of a novel experience it is for us."

He humored Wanda, letting her pull him to his feet. The second they started walking, she hooked her arm in his.

"What'd Strucker say to you?" Wanda asked. "Do you think he did that interview with everyone?"

"I feel like he would." Pietro paused. "I just don't know what it was for."

None of their "friends" (or "familiars," as Pietro preferred) were in the cafeteria, and they took an unoccupied table gratefully. As he forked some eggs, he tried to focus on the cafeteria workers and their mumbled German. Or was it English? He had begun to notice that the workers spoke both, but he couldn't figure out the rhyme or reason. It was so dumb, but he was hoping part of the soldier training program would involve teaching them some more English. It was irrational, he knew, but he could only imagine feeling truly safe if he and Wanda made it as far away from Sokovia as possible, and England and America were safe bets. They'd need English there.

"Do you think these people are cut out for it?" Wanda said. "No offense, but a lot of them look like…you know, university students."

Pietro gave the growing breakfast crowd a quick scan. She wasn't off the mark; tons of them were slight in build, with glasses and manicured nails and uncontrolled voices, hairs too loud for the room. They didn't seem the type who observed or knew how to brace themselves in the face of danger.

Then again, Pietro couldn't imagine that he and Wanda looked like much: dirt under their nails, Pietro sporting facial hair he didn't have the means to shave off, their hands shaking or tapping for no other reason than habit. He was sure he wasn't shooting anyone trustworthy looks.

Even after hours of Strucker telling them that they were special, Pietro couldn't think of a reason why. He glanced at Wanda, that same giddiness he'd felt ever since they'd confessed a different sort of love for one another years back still buzzing in his chest.

At least he didn't have a reason for himself.

His and Wanda's gazes met, and she frowned. "Do I have something on my face?"

Pietro smiled. "No. I'm just enjoying the view."

She blushed a little, shook her head. "Of what?"

"This beautiful girl next to me." He took her fork. "She's something else."

Pietro transferred the fork into the hand furthest from Wanda and leaned sideways. When she leaned over to try to grab it, he leaned forward and stole a kiss. She played his game for a few seconds.

"Pietro, people are watching us," Wanda said, hunching into herself. Pietro glanced around. No one was in fact watching them. "Not like that. Baron Strucker's people. They don't need to know we're together. It might get us kicked out."

"They wanted twins, didn't they? Screw anything else." He smirked. "Me included."

She couldn't bite back a grin. "You have the tact and self-restraint of a twelve-year-old boy."

Wanda took her fork back. "Thank God you've got the drive of a menopausal woman to rope me in."

"Has it been twenty-four hours already? Let's go. I'm sure there's a supply closet around here somewhere."

That was still a fantasy of his. The supply closet, the more-successful older sibling of the public restroom.

He focused back on his food. "I don't know, Wan. I wouldn't want you to be too worn out for the tests today."

She punched his shoulder and they continued on with breakfast.

#

If Pietro were completely honest, he was disappointed that the tests were as underwhelming as they were. They weren't even tests. They just had them lift weights and do sprints and complete little mind puzzles. Sure, he was a little cocky that he'd gotten higher scores on the physical tests than most of the guys he tested with, but that was the best feeling he could get.

Everyone went to the showers and off to the lounge after the tests were finished. He and Wanda got separated when she took forever to finish one of the mind puzzles, but he found her almost instantly.

"How ya feeling?" he asked her.

Wanda cracked her neck. "Stiff, but not bad. I did better on the physical tests than I thought. You?"

"Not bad."

They settled for a worn out couch off away from most of the commotion.

"Hey, did you notice that Ivan's gone?"

Pietro shook his head. "Guess you could fail…"

"Hm. Wonder what he did wrong."

Pietro looked around the area. For the life of him, he couldn't remember if any of the familiars knew that he and Wanda were twins. Sure, they all called them "Maximoffs" but that could easily mean Mr. and Mrs. Maximoff.

Then again, they were all doing their own thing. No reason they'd pay any attention. No reason Pietro really had to care; they might be surrounded by other people, but it was still them against the world.

He glanced at Wanda and pulled her closer. His first priority was to calm his sister down before the experiments started, even if she wasn't going to admit that she was nervous. Wanda was a bit more intuitive than him, but he was still pretty damn good. It could be something so small—the way she'd tug at a loose thread on her clothing or try to get him to fill the air with idle conversation. At that point, she was doing both.

"Typically precautions make people feel better," Pietro said as he pushed a wisp of hair out of her face.

"What're you talking about?"

"You're nervous about the procedure. You're practically writing it into the couch." They glanced down, at the long string she'd freed from the seam of the couch.

"I'm not worried about the procedure." She winced. "Not a lot. I'm just wondering what it will be like after. Does this thing work right away? Even if the procedure doesn't have any risks, what happens after?"

He kissed her cheek. "If anyone's strong enough for this procedure, it's us. Don't worry about it."

He startled a bit when one of their stomachs began to rumble. He was fairly certain it was his, but his brain was turning off. Part of him really wished he could embrace full apathy and be annoyed that he couldn't eat for something like twelve hours, forced to convince his instinct-driven brain that he was indeed going to get food in twelve hours, but he was nervous too. Something about that pre-surgery preparation thing rubbed him wrong. Strucker had made it clear that it wasn't a surgery. He said injection sometimes, and he said transfer other times. None of those would make anesthesia necessary, which was why that no food before surgery rule existed, right? If it wasn't that, what the hell were these guys going to do to them?

Time seemed to snail-crawl along as he and Wanda sat in front of a TV with dwindling number of people watching American cartoons with Sokovian subtitles, but once there was no one but him and Wanda, he'd have done anything to stop time.

An attendant led him and Wanda deeper into the facility than they'd ever been. The halls got narrower, the walls got darker, the materials got harder. Even the attendant seemed to lose a shade of professional friendliness. Whereas before Pietro could pick out a bit of Sokovian among the whispers of the workers, everyone who passed them were only speaking in German or English.

The attendant stopped at a room with three doors and two wheeled beds. He motioned them to separate.

He felt a little ridiculous doing it, but Pietro turned Wanda to face him and hugged her tight. The attendant cleared his throat. Pietro kissed her forehead, hesitated, and kissed her lips.

"See you on the other side," Pietro said.

She forced a smile. "See ya there."

They climbed into bed, and she reached out, squeezed his hand. His heart jumped a little, and went right ahead to beat furiously once attendants separated them completely.

It felt more unnatural than he ever imagined.

As he was wheeled into a room that looked suspiciously like an operating room, he regretted not telling Wanda that he loved her. Even if she knew. Even if he'd see her again in a few hours.

The first thing the new, doctor-looking men did was secure him to the bed. Leather straps on his ankles, thighs, stomach, upper chest, biceps, wrists, and hands. Just when he thought they were done, they strapped one across his forehead.

"Are you relaxed, Mr. Maximoff?" Strucker asked in that whispery voice of his.

"So…this isn't a surgery?" Pietro asked, swallowing.

"No. We can't risk anesthesia or any other drugs will interfere with the serum."

Pietro tugged at his wrist restraint, and an attendant tightened it.

"And the restraints? The surgery prep?"

"We're taking as many precautions we can to keep you safe. I can't predict how much this will hurt, so I was as cautious as possible to keep you unharmed."

He hadn't calculated for the pain? What did that imply? Now was not a good time to think about it. His already racing heart started beating so fast he genuinely feared a heart attack. He could feel the sweat beading between his skin and the restraints.

"Any questions, Mr. Maximoff?" Strucker asked as he put on a pair of gloves.

"What exactly are you going to do to me?"

Pietro promised himself that he wouldn't scream.

"Improve you."

What?

Strucker nodded, and an attendant secured two more restraints: one over his throat, and one in his mouth. Someone turned on the radio, some station playing a pop-sounding American song, the words too fast for him to even pretend to understand. Strucker picked something up off a table, out of Pietro's limited viewpoint. Less than a minute, and the taste of leather made him want to gag. Strucker turned around, a…God, Pietro didn't even know. A…weapon of some kind, a spear, a scythe that glowed blue in his hands. Strucker pushed a button, and the weapon started to hum, emitted a light blue strand of energy.

Pietro's eyes widened, watching that energy until the moment the tip hit his chest, the energy exploding as it swum under his skin, glowed in his veins.

He screamed.


	4. The Red Witch & The Glowing Scepter

Wanda

Wanda screamed.

She didn't want to, she tried to hold it in, but this was agony. She hadn't even gotten remotely close to giving birth, but somewhere in her brain, she knew this was worse than that. She strained against the leather straps, bit down so hard on the leather she was surprised she hadn't broken through and sliced clean through her tongue.

 _Please stop_ she pleaded in her mind, praying she could form the words through her blubbering.

Tears wetting her ears and nearly blinding her, she searched for Baron Strucker. He'd been here when they started. He'd asked her if she wanted music to calm her nerves, squeezed her hand reassuringly before picking up that…that thing. The glowing thing that he'd just tapped against her chest. She could only remember him doing it once.

Once, and she felt like her veins were full of acid, each heartbeat pushing it further through her bloodstream, killing her. There was no way someone could survive something so painful.

She finally understood why Baron Strucker hadn't let them eat before. This pain—God, even something half as awful would've made her want to vomit. She almost wished she could; a welcome distraction, and maybe it'd just kill her if she choked—

No. No, she couldn't think like, like that. Pietro was in the other room enduring the same treatment. He'd take this treatment for the rest of his life if he could reunite with her in the end. She'd do the same.

She couldn't keep the tears from flowing or the yelps and bawling from escaping her lips, but she could tell herself to stay awake. She could try at least, to focus elsewhere.

She shut her eyes, curled her fingers as much as she could around the restraints. Despite knowing its function—keeping her from sticking her nails right through her palms—she wished she could do that old pain trick, pinching herself to give her mind something else to focus on.

It seemed so random, but she found herself thinking about a book she read years ago. Twilight, or something like that. It'd been about vampires and some girl who fell in love with one. The book had been free in a donation bin, ripped up so much that some passages were illegible. The narrator in that book had given this bland description of what it felt like to be turned into a vampire, how the vampire venom felt like it was destroying her from the inside out.

She wondered what kind of monster this serum would turn her into.

God, she tried hard to keep her mouth shut, but there was no relenting. She cried out as a new wave of pain washed over her. She bucked, she strained, she flailed as much as the restraints would allow. She stole a glance at Baron Strucker. He was still with her, watching her, the weapon held up right next to him. She could barely see him at the angle they were out, but she saw him smile.

"You're doing well, Miss Maximoff," he said. "You're handling it much better than the others have. We'll take the restraints off too, once the pain wears off."

It sure didn't feel like it would ever wear off. It felt timeless, and somehow it made it so much worse. At least with childbirth there was were goals to be met, a product that came out of it after specific actions were done. This was…this was an experiment. No one knew how long she'd be in pain. She had no assurance that she'd ever get out of the restraints.

She bit down on the leather strap hard. The taste of leather was never going to leave her mouth if she ever got off this bed.

"Time?" someone asked.

"Two hours."

It had been two hours? How was that possible?

"Vitals?"

"She's still ticking."

"One more time."

She recognized the voice who said that, but she couldn't place a name. Was it Baron Strucker, or…or…

The pain began to lull, the peace before the next swell. She knew. She could feel it edging back toward her nerves, the ba on the ba-bum of her heartbeat. She furrowed her brow, tensed her muscles, and willed herself to shut her eyes.

But she couldn't. Baron Strucker stood up and grabbed the weapon. Clicked the button, made it burst to life. Wanda quaked, like she was five years old and getting her first shot again. _Please stop. Please please please._

Baron Strucker lowered the weapon again. Ba-bam, ba-bum, ba—

Wanda lost consciousness before she felt the energy touch her. Oblivion had never felt more like a friend.

#

When Wanda regained consciousness, the pain had dulled to an ache, but she couldn't say she felt better. It felt like an invisible anvil was planted over her entire body. She couldn't move, and she wasn't even sure she could connect enough nerves in her brain to think properly. Somehow, even closing her eyes took too much effort.

She wasn't sure if she lost consciousness again, only that at some point later, she managed to roll onto her side and retch. There wasn't much to come out, the slime slowly rolling back toward her until it settled in the crease between the sheets and her cheek. It felt like someone was squeezing her head until it burst like a fucking balloon. Her arms shook as she raised them to press against her the side of her head. In her mind she was screaming again, like the helpless baby she felt like, but the only sound she could hear was a pitiful moan.

She heard footsteps, and two male voices began to argue. They spoke English, so she could pick out a few words. "Idiot," "change," "sick," "the girl."

Someone lifted her off the bed, and she heard the rushing air of the sheets being ripped off the bed. After years of feeling Pietro's calloused hands against her skin, this man's grip was wholly unfamiliar. It was probably still just the after-effects of the experiments, but she felt sick thinking about how it wasn't Pietro holding her.

"Where's my warrior?"

Wanda didn't have the strength to look up, but she recognized Baron Strucker's voice.

"What are you doing?"

For the first time since meeting him, Baron Strucker sounded angry.

"She's still reacting to the treatment," the man holding her said.

"Is it any worse than the others? I'm not losing the twins."

"It's nothing like that. She's just—"

"Put her in a temperature-controlled room. Give her blankets, water, any natural pain reliever you can find." He paused, and she could feel his gaze bore into her. "Only use drugs if it's absolutely necessary. Not until we know." Another pause. "And for God's sake, wipe the vomit off her face. She's going to have all the power in the world. Give her some god damn dignity."

Baron Strucker's orderlies did as he said, wiping her face, placing her back on the bed, wheeling her off into a cold room.

The cold was shocking, an instant bolt of energy. Just enough for her to move her limbs and curl into a ball. She was aware of how clammy she was, how foggy her thoughts were getting. It almost felt hard to breathe. Nothing felt…felt right.

 _You're okay._ She made it her anchor. She had to be okay. She'd survived the pain. She couldn't let this reaction take her. Baron Strucker mentioned not losing the twins. Pietro must be okay. She had to get back to Pietro. She bet he was in a normal recovery room worried sick about where she was. She just needed to…

 _Gone. Gone, gone, gone. The wall, the table, the chairs, the floor._

 _Them. They're both gone. Gone don't look down gone gone they're gone gone gone._

 _Wanda…_

 _Don't look. It's okay. It's o (don't move) kay._

She wouldn't move. She wouldn't. Even if she was cramped, scared, terrified. Even if the shards from the disappeared room were digging into her palms, even if she could hardly breathe. Pietro was okay, so she'd be the same.

She closed her eyes, could finally feel the sweat beat down from the nape of her neck. She felt her forehead, taken aback by how hot it was.

It was hot. Not warm, the way childhood flus or the occasional nasty bout of food poisoning she and Pietro would accidentally give themselves while on the street had been.

She was parched. She was empty. She couldn't think—

Someone walked into the room. Placed a thermometer into her mouth. Set a washcloth on her forehead. He held a water bottle, and held it farther away when she reached for it. He left the room. Came back with a plastic cup.

Another nurse lifted her into a sitting position while the other offered her a spoon. She didn't realize that it was ice until the chips were melting in her mouth. She clutched his shirt when he tried to walk away after just one scoop.

"Just one more," he muttered.

She wished she could empty that cup, but he dropped the remaining ice into a trashcan.

"What's her temperature?" the nurse who had held her up asked the one with the ice.

"Forty, and a washcloth isn't gonna change that."

"Shit."

"Should we just…?"

"If she goes, what're we gonna do? She…if she's gonna survive, if she's as powerful as he thinks…"

"We can't—He'll—"

"We have to try something. Prep an IV."

Wanda leaned into her pillow, pushed her face into it. God, she didn't even know why. She just—just needed to get out of here. Out of the room, out of the day, out of this life. Pietro. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. This was how people felt before they died. She could see their lies. She was going to die. Maybe Pietro was already dead too. If she did die, he'd kill himself. It shouldn't comfort her, but it did. They could return to their parents, finally finish that family dinner Tony Stark had obliterated eleven years ago.

She was so thirsty, though. How could she die like this? Dying was supposed to be peaceful. Why did nothing feel right? Why did they throw the ice chips away? Why weren't they giving her medicine? Didn't they want her to

 _(have all the power in the world)_

survive?

She lifted her head, focused on that trash can. She knew she couldn't see the cup of ice, but somehow, she…she knew where it was. Exact location in the trashcan, how many chips were left. She could feel the condensation, the prickles of cold on her skin, their weight as they'd slide around her palm.

She focused on that trashcan. Focused so hard she swore the picture of the room went away, until her head was pounding. Sore, almost. Like…an unused muscle.

A sort of red mist suddenly materialized, slid off from between her fingers. It was beautiful, somehow. She imagined the mist dance as it moved, twirling and weaving around itself. The muscle in her brain strained when the mist hit the ice. She stifled a cry with a bitten tongue. The red gripped onto the ice, lurched into the air.

She watched it like one watches a movie as one falls asleep. Dream-like. Hallucinatory.

Real. Tangible. Possible.

When the ice sifted into her mouth, something changed. She didn't know how, or why, but it felt like, like the damn ice was enchanted, medicinal.

A pocket of clarity.

The one thing that seeped through the chaos all around her was: _I did that._

#

Baron Strucker smiled at her like a child would smile at a favorite relative. His pen tapped against his clipboard, the folds at the corner of his eye seemingly struggling to keep the monocle in. She couldn't say if it was the natural course of post-experiment symptoms or from the…effects themselves, but she felt much better. Or, at least, she didn't feel sick anymore; she hadn't quite gotten to energetic yet.

"How does it feel?" he asked her.

He'd just had her sit in her little recovery/holding room, lifting pencils and streams of water and whatever else he could think of into the air.

"It…It feels like a muscle, I guess," Wanda said. "It's still so weak. I can't hold up anything that heavy, and it hurts when I strain too hard. Sometimes I can imagine what it would be like to lift something and not feel its weight, but it's not there yet."

"Can you summon the energy and use it for anything besides telekinesis?"

Wanda did as Baron Strucker asked, "summoned" an orb of the red energy. It still felt so unnatural in her hand, like she was on the cusp of waking from this dream every time she held it. Its default form seemed to be to a sort of sphere, the edges not quite perfect. When she shifted her fingers, the shape of the orb would shift with it. It gave off a bit of warmth, and Wanda wondered what it would feel like to others. Was it meant to be a weapon, and was actually hot?

She stared at her little orb. She wondered if it was like a baby animal, if it could—if she could—train to be benevolent with it, or if it was destined to be used as a weapon.

It was the first time she questioned Baron Strucker's intentions, and she buried it so fast that the orb disappeared with it.

"Sorry, I—" Wanda muttered.

"Don't worry about it. You're one of my most successful subjects. No one expects you to master it overnight."

"What is it? You said telekinesis, but what is this energy? How did that thing do this to me?"

"Are you familiar with other dimensions? With the alien invasion in New York a while back?" Wanda nodded; everyone knew. "I was blessed enough to receive a very special souvenir from the alien invasion. A weapon from a world called Asgard. We don't quite understand where it draws its power, but it has supernatural qualities to it. We've seen what it can do to regular weapons, and as we've seen, to humans, it grants unbelievable power."

"What did it do to Pietro?"

Baron Strucker shifted. "Your brother hasn't shown any manifestations yet, but he's faring better than the other subjects."

She supposed that meant that other subjects had been sick like she had.

"Can I see him? I feel much better."

Baron Strucker put a hand over hers. "Right now, we need to watch everyone on an individual basis. I promise, you can see him soon."

The interview concluded.

Wanda waited a day in her new room. A thin mattress dressed in a single blanket and flat pillow, all set on a metallic frame, a sink, a toilet, and a shelf with nothing on it. They let her change between two uniforms, the one for night looser than the other.

They led her alone to the empty communal showers twice a day, and that was the only time she left the room. She never saw anyone aside from the occasional worker. Baron Strucker would visit her daily, talk about her progress with her powers, and dreams she'd had, and she tried to control the little red orbs.

Wanda waited a week in her not-so-new room. They handed her food on trays, and those were the workers that spoke the slowest English, the kind she could understand. One of them called her "the red witch," like the character on some show called Game of Thrones. The worker he'd been talking to shushed him, told him to never say that in front of Baron Strucker. That the "red witch" was Baron Strucker's most prized possession.

She wondered if they were right, that her orbs were hexes, like a witch. Magic without a wand. She wished she knew who the red witch the in show they were mentioning was. She wondered if Baron Strucker would let her watch television.

When she wasn't thinking about her powers, she thought about Pietro. They'd never been alone this long, and the separation felt like a sickness in and of itself. They never let her go anywhere, but she dragged her feet wherever they took her. She'd walk around with her stomach screwed into a knot waiting for the next face to round the corner to be Pietro's. The room felt immeasurably colder without his warmth against her each night. She go to sleep curled into a ball, trying to cuddle with herself, and wake up grasping at air. Not even making an orb to comfort her at night did anything.

She only cried at night, choking back sobs so no one could hear her. Some nights, it physically hurt, like someone was digging into her physical heart as much as Pietro's absence was doing to the heart in her head. The nightmares were more frequent as she closed her eyes to the sound of the buzzing of the electrical equipment. She dreamt of her parents, of her friends in Sokovia, of Pietro. Sometimes, she'd dream about divorce, dead children, crumbled buildings, disappearing into the galaxy. Her emotions threw her from one side of the room to the other; one second she'd be depressed over Pietro, and the next she'd be annoyed, excited, nervous, horny, then back to where she'd started. There was never enough time to feel anything but her pain.

Every day, she'd wake up wondering if she was going mad.

She went to bed each night knowing she was.


	5. Too Slow

Pietro

Strucker said when the pain stopped. Glanced at Pietro as he dug his teeth into the leather, his body finally so exhausted that he was no longer squirming or thrashing, and said they were done. Pietro couldn't quite describe it. His entire body ached, hell, blazed with pain, but he also couldn't tell how much he actually felt. It was like someone had pumped him with sedative sometime during the procedure, but he knew no one had. He glanced up at Strucker, hoping he knew that Pietro wasn't about to get up and walk into the recovery room.

He took a deep breath and released his grip on the leather. God, he was surprised he hadn't broken his jaw straining as hard as he was. _It's done. Just relax, and you'll be with Wanda._

He breathed as controlled as he knew how, counting, keeping a rhythm, but he was becoming more and more aware that his heart was beating like a hummingbird's. Unnatural. He put his hand over his heart, hoping it was all some trauma-induced hallucination.

His heart really was beating that fast. He squeezed his eyes shut. Just let him pass out. His thoughts didn't feel like his own, his body felt foreign, he was out of synch.

Another wave of pain rolled over him. His body convulsed, arched and crunched back into a ball. He clutched the sheets before he even thought about it.

He thought the phrase, "What's happening?" but what came out of his mouth wasn't any language he'd ever spoke.

"Relax, Mr. Maximoff. Someone will take you to the recovery room momentarily," Strucker said.

It had to be the trauma. Because…Pietro could understand what Strucker had said, but it was like his voice had been processed and slowed down, like a sound effect. Had that weapon effected his brain? Was that part of this? God, he didn't sign up for these guys to fuck with his _brain_.

Someone did come in and wheeled him out of the room, but no one bothered to remove the leather restraints. The squeaking of the bed's wheels seemed louder, the talking of the attendants seemed to resonate less, Pietro was going crazy, and he'd been changed for five minutes. God, he needed Wanda. She always knew how to put him back in his place, back to reality. Something was wrong with him. Something was wrong, and no one was talking about it.

As he was wheeled by, Pietro looked at other wheeling beds. Sometimes he could glimpse patches of hair or clenched fists from the bed, but other times all he saw were white sheets and lumps beneath them. He strained to find Wanda, but none of them were her. He'd know her even if he couldn't recognize her.

They left him in a tiny room that looked more like a jail cell than the dormitory arrangements Strucker had promised. Sink, toilet, metal bed with a thin mattress, blank walls.

"What about Wanda?" he asked.

"She's still in the recovery room," the attendant said before he shut the door on him.

He swore the door slamming shut reverberated off against his entire body.

His heart started to hammer again. He put his hand out in front of his face, but it didn't look—didn't look human?

Pietro shot up and found himself staring at his reflection in some dingy mirror. His eyes were wide, pupils so big he almost forgot they were supposed to be blue. His hair was limp with sweat, stains spreading down his shirt. His sore jaw that he couldn't move five minutes ago was suddenly alive as he chattered his teeth. But he wasn't cold.

He brought his hand to his forehead, and watched in astonishment as it went by in a blur, regaining focus as his palm laid against his forehead. He couldn't tell if he was hot.

What's happening?

He lifted both his hands to his face, rolled the pads of his fingers over his slick skin, through his tangled hair.

One of his hands got tangled in his hair, and he couldn't just pull it out. He tugged, heart still beating out of his chest, arms and legs still vibrating, tears now burning in his eyes. _They broke me._

He tugged, and tugged, but his hand wasn't coming loose. Images flitted through his mind—his parents, Wanda, their old home, the rubble, the squatting buildings, the rubble, the orphanage, the streets, Strucker—and then it was like someone knocked his pile of photos away from him. He looked out between the slits, as people walked by. They were walking by so _slowly_.

But his hand. His hand, his hand, his hand was still stuck.

Where was Wanda? He needed Wanda. He needed his hand back. He needed everyone to _speed up_.

He yanked his hand away with all his might, taking a chunk of hair out with it. The pain ripped across his scalp. Hair still between his fingers, he brought his hand back to his scalp. He was bleeding now, too.

He couldn't hear his own voice as he screamed, thrashed, dumped his body from the bed onto the concrete floor. He never really prayed, but lying on that floor, he begged God to let him wake up and for everything to be a dream.

It wasn't like in the movies where the patient doesn't feel the pain of that sedative going in. He felt every agonizing second of the IV being thrust into his body, felt the sluggish drug as it slid into his bloodstream.

He just didn't care.

#

Strucker didn't explain what Pietro's "power" was exactly, but somehow the scientist communicated that it was a result of the weapon, the "scepter." Pietro wasn't so sure that having a name for this power would really do much to make him feel better. As far as he was concerned, before the experiment, he had a pretty normal temperament, and after the experiment, he was constantly agitated, impatient, perception both infinitely clearer yet he never felt focused on anything. He couldn't count to more than twenty without losing his concentration. And God fucking knew why, but he was hungrier too, but they weren't feeding him more.

He hoped Wanda was doing better than him.

"Hey Strucker, wanna help a guy out?" Pietro muttered to the walls as he rubbed the wounds left from all the IVs in his wrist the past week. "I'd love an update on my stability. You know, if I'm gonna need to steal mood stabilizers for the rest of my life, or how this makes me a better soldier." Or where Wanda was, and why he couldn't see her.

He sat up as he heard the squeak of wheels. A man pushing a hospital bed, off-white sheets covering what looked like a full body on the slab, feigned eye contact. Pietro furrowed his brow. Was that person…dead?

Sure, Strucker had made them sign release forms or whatever, but Pietro had never really considered the thought that people could actually die.

No, that was a lie. He totally thought people could die under that scepter, but once he emerged okay, he never thought that people would actually be dead because of it.

What if they were lying to him, and Wanda was dead too? The thought alone was enough to make him feel sick. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his cheek against the cold wall. _She's okay. You'd know if she wasn't._

Even if he didn't really believe in twin telepathy. Even if they'd probably lie to him for the rest of his life about Wanda. Even if all the signs—

He slammed his fist against the wall. Lately, pain seemed to be the only thing that could bring him back to reality. He winced, retracted his hand, and flexed his fingers. Really, he hadn't added any more bruises than he already had.

Then, an attendant—a different attendant—came rushing in. "Is everything okay?" he asked in English.

Pietro nodded. "Is Strucker in?" he asked.

He hadn't spoken in so long that he hardly recognized his own voice. He recognized it even less as it uttered English.

"Are you feeling okay?"

No.

"Nothing Strucker would be concerned about."

"He's concerned about your every need, Mr. Maximoff."

"I can't focus, my right hand goes numb every few hours, you don't feed me enough, and I want my sister. Can you fix any of those? Oh, I mean may—no, wait, I mean can."

The attendant wrinkled his brow. "You've learned enough English in the past week to know the difference between 'can' and 'may'?"

Pietro motioned toward the pile of books Strucker had left him, everything ranging from English learning books to plain old novels written in English. "It's not like I've had much else to do."

"Remarkable." He paused. "I'll tell Baron Strucker."

So much for attending to any of his needs.

#

Wanda loved this poem or inspirational quote about time being relative, something about how certain experiences like kissing and watching movies could slow or stop time, but Pietro swore everything was doing that to him. And not in a good making out sort of way. He couldn't keep denying it. When he was alone, everything was fine, he could think faster, but the moment he came into contact with anyone that wasn't him, he went insane.

Everything was moving slower. He couldn't deny it anymore. Everything was moving slower, and he had no idea what to do about it. Strucker had to have a cure for this. He'd kill himself before he even got to find Wanda.

He watched the asshole with the cart of food amble his way toward Pietro's cell. He only had one tray on the damn cart, yet he was walking like he'd have to stop at every cell to deliver food. Like he didn't know where to go. Pietro clenched his hand, shifted positions. The asshole finally stopped in front of Pietro's cell. Kicked the brake on the cart. Picked up the tray. Unravelled the saran wrap.

Once the saran wrap came off, Pietro caught a whiff of the food. For all that he wanted to complain about everything, Strucker gave them better food than he and Wanda had gotten on the streets. His stomach actually ached in anticipation, and he found himself holding his gaze on the man. Heavy, unwavering, almost unconscious. He didn't know. He just…felt like a predator somehow, like a lion in a cage, and the worker shrunk back like it.

Normally Pietro would've taken the opportunity to mess with the guy, but the damn agitation was coursing through his body at lightening speed. Pietro got to his feet and flexed his hands again. He could imagine it, right then and there. Walking up to that guy, ripping the tray from his hands, and ripping his head off with it. There wasn't even a good reason why, he was just so _frustrated_. Was that why the guy looked so scared, because he could sense what Pietro was feeling?

 _Is this the kind of soldier Strucker wants?_

The guy opened Pietro's door and dropped the tray just inside it. Slammed the door shut, and scurried off.

Pietro took a deep breath, wretched his fingers out from his palm. He'd left three little scratches there, but it was his right hand, so he couldn't feel it well. He pulled the tray onto his lap and started eating. If he was supposed to be a soldier, Pietro sure didn't know what kind. Was it possible that Strucker would reject him? If the roles were reversed, Pietro would boot the moody, lethargic, self-destructive kid.

The food was gone far before Pietro was satisfied and he barely resisted chucking the tray against the wall.

Where was Wanda? He needed Wanda. He couldn't keep doing this alone. God, what if she was dead, or they never planned to reunite them? He should've never gone along with this. Every hour in isolation had made the thoughts worse, the nightmares more vivid. He couldn't stand not knowing Wanda was okay. He hadn't told Wanda that he loved her in a week. He didn't know when he'd get to do it again. He didn't know if he would ever see her face, hear her voice, or hold her hands again. He missed her more than he thought it was possible to miss someone. He missed her naive optimism, the way her brow would furrow when she concentrated, how safe and loved he felt when she smiled at him.

"Sorry, I promised you extra food," someone said as the door opened again.

A small bag of M&Ms came flying through the door, landing on the opposite side of the door slammed shut again.

Pietro eyed the candy, mouth watering.

 _Just stay sane for Wanda. They can't keep us apart forever._

He stood up.

He stood up, and the world went by in a blur. He felt the pain before he realized where he was.

His hand was bleeding. He was on the other side of the room.

His hand was mangled, crunched up between the concrete wall and his body. He was on the other side of the room.

In fact, his whole arm might be broken. He couldn't feel anything to be able to tell. His hand looked inhuman. Blood ran down his face too. He was on his back, looking up at the light that was supposed to be on the other side of the room. The room was fuzzy, somehow, black on the edges.

In his mangled hand was the bag of M&Ms.

He was on the other side of the room. How the hell had he gotten to the other side of the room?

The face of the attendant who'd given him the M&Ms was suddenly looming over him, eyes wide. He glanced back behind him and said, "I think I know what his power is," to someone Pietro couldn't see.

Someone yelled, "This tape will be amazing!"

Pietro passed out.


	6. Floating

Wanda

Wanda didn't know how long it had been. She guessed weeks, but months, even years seemed plausible. She didn't know if she'd lost her fight, or if the sedative they'd given her was taking more than the edge off things.

She thought she'd been doing so well.

Strucker stopped talking about ifs. It was when. When she mastered her telekinesis. When she started training. When she became a soldier. When she reunited with Pietro.

Wanda watched as a worker wheeled in a pile of wooden blocks. She only knew it was night because of her loose uniform, what they encouraged her to wear to sleep. He said he'd come back with food, but the thought of it was nauseating. She hadn't really eaten since they kept the sedatives constant.

She exhaled, clambered to her feet, and took an armful of the blocks. Returned to her spot on the floor. Dropped the blocks.

The _whens_ stopped when the hallucinations started. It had been as good a day as she could ever have, and Strucker had even told her that she could see Pietro the next day. It was the first night she'd gone to bed and didn't cry or lie awake missing him.

She'd woken up paralyzed, the way kids would talk about when they talked about ghost encounters years ago. She hadn't been able to move, and she'd…well, she hadn't _seen_ anything, but she _heard_ things. When she closed her eyes, scenes flashed through her mind—suicide attempts to drives home. She'd never felt a part of the scenes, like a carsick passenger in a rough car ride. She'd reach out to touch something, and that red energy turned everything into a nightmare. She laid there, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, but she wasn't there. It was like fever hallucinations, being woken up from deep sleep—she _knew_ nothing was real, but the fear and terror and despair tore into her like jackals on a corpse.

Wanda took a moment to feel the blocks with her hand. They weren't anything special, the type of blocks that probably came out of someone's attic. No colors, hardly smooth enough to not give splinters. Not too heavy. She set the blocks down, spread them out, and stared at them. She was tired, but a part of her wanted to see what she could do with them. She willed her energy out of her hands and lifted a block into the air. Two, three, four went up after it.

She had lashed out. The rational part of her just needed it to end. She knew, guessed, knew that one of the walls was a two-way mirror. She'd fallen out of bed, crawled, no, dragged herself over to that mirror and slapped her hands palms up onto the wall. No one had answered. She'd balled her hands into fists and slammed them into the glass. She'd pleaded in every language she knew, _make it stop._ No one had answered. She clawed her fingers up and down the wall until blood covered the pane.

Wanda did what her muddled brain could think of. She moved the blocks in circles, flipped them one over the other. She watched her hands glow red. In isolation, that glow was really beginning to feel like another person. A part of her. Almost like a child. She loved it, wanted to see what it could do. It was beautiful. More beautiful than almost anything. She still didn't know what the red witch was, but she was really starting to feel like one. It didn't feel bad. She focused on one block, made it rotate while the others danced around it. It shook.

She hadn't known then what kind of damage she'd caused. When her nails hurt too much, she used her head instead. She banged on the glass, stuck on the thought that no one was hearing her. The blood from her hands stuck to her hair, yet there was still plenty of red on the glass. _Kill it, kill it, kill it_ was the only voice she recognized as her own. She didn't know what she wanted to kill. Her. She knew, she didn't. She wanted it to end. They'd probably already killed Pietro. She'd just be joining him.

Wanda watched as the block shook. The others dropped. Sometimes, she feared her scarlet baby. She wondered if she'd given birth to something that would help the world, or destroy it. It was like a siren, her own perfect song. She swore sometimes that it spoke to her. Told her to destroy. She stared at the shaking block, and all she could imagine was ripping it apart molecule by molecule. She could imagine doing it to the whole room, to the next person that walked in. It didn't feel wrong.

The workers had seemed faceless, and part of Wanda was convinced they were. They picked her up off the floor, grabbed her right hand, and stuck a needle into it. No one tried to clean up her wounds, lay her back on her bed or anything. She watched as the fluid traveled into her veins, swore she could feel it burn. Like liquor. Burn, then calm. _What's wrong with her?_ they asked. _Maybe Strucker's wrong. She's not ready. Will she even survive? Will she let herself?_

The block exploded, those innocent wooden shards flying off in every direction. Wanda ducked down, covered her eyes with her sleeve on instinct. She waited, and straightened back out. The wood was everywhere, but nothing had hit her. The thought made her smile, like her power hadn't wanted to hurt her.

The only time Baron Strucker didn't make her have at least a couple milliliters of sedative was when they talked. She hoped she could show him her progress the next time they met. Maybe he'd go back to saying _when._ She didn't mind the drugs, really. Baron Strucker had assured her that the drugs would keep the nightmare that she'd nearly killed herself over from coming back. And, so far he'd been right.

#

"How's Pietro doing?" Wanda asked the next time she saw Baron Strucker.

He came to her cell now. Never made her leave. She sometimes wondered if she'd go blind if she saw the sun again.

"He's doing fine. Sore. His powers are much more physical than yours."

The thought was comforting, that Pietro would share this wonderful burden with her. Not that it surprised her. Pietro was destined for extraordinary things.

"How so?"

She'd never considered her powers anything but physical.

"The scepter altered his body. It altered your mind." How perfect. She wondered if Baron Strucker was happy about that, the balanced twins. "Have you had any other hallucinations?"

Wanda shook her head. "Not with the drugs."

"What about right now? You're not on any medication."

No. She was so anxious she was surprised she hadn't passed out, but it was nothing beyond a normal stress reaction.

"I'm okay."

"But for how long?"

Wanda frowned. "I don't know. The last time it happened, it was in the middle of the night. I hope it doesn't come quicker."

Baron Strucker frowned, jumped a little. "Come again?"

"You asked me how long I thought I'd be okay."

Baron Strucker leaned back in his seat again, stroked his chin. Wrote something down. "Of course." There was a long pause. "You look frail, Miss Maximoff."

The uniform hid it well, but she'd noticed how skeletal she was becoming. More than being on the streets. "I haven't been eating well lately."

"Is there something wrong with the food?"

"No, I just—the medication…I never feel a desire to eat."

He frowned. "Can't have that." He exhaled. "The medication is very strong. If I take you off it for an extra hour around meal times, will you promise to eat?"

Wanda nodded.

#

The nice worker came in to give her food that night. He asked her how she was feeling without the medication, and she finally learned his name—Daniel. They'd given her a light meal, but for the first time in weeks, it stirred something in her. Daniel said he'd come back in a couple minutes to give her the sedative, and she ate in silence.

The soup Strucker had given her was much better than what she and Pietro used to scrounge up, but each spoonful brought back memories. She could still remember one of their first months out on the streets, how she'd bought them three cans of soup from some sale. She'd lied to Pietro and said she'd bought four and ate one on the way back so he'd accept two instead of one. He'd been so insistent about her eating before him, and she'd hated it.

She hoped Pietro was getting double whatever she got then.

There was something miraculous about being able to crawl into bed with a full stomach, something Wanda had forgotten about since the streets. Baron Strucker had seemed happy. Maybe that meant he was considering letting Wanda see Pietro again. They were both doing well. It'd only make sense. Surely Baron Strucker was as anxious to start training them as she was to be trained.

She curled up on top of her covers, and drifted off to sleep.

She woke up in something beautiful. She didn't know if cosmic was the right word. It was dark, limitless, yet bursting with color. Not overwhelming though. Like a sunset across nothing. She was nothing with it, but the idea wasn't alarming.

 _Do you see that?_

She did. She didn't know what it was, where she was. But she saw it, a particular stripe of color. Yellow. Red was her favorite color, but the stripes of red weren't calling to her. The yellow was.

 _Do you like it?_

The yellow began to come closer. To nothing, to her.

 _Do you trust it?_

She looked down, and she found her hands. Finally. There was a bridge beneath her, crystal, reflecting off the darkness and colors like a piece of glass. She didn't recognize what she was wearing, but it was red, like the glow in her hands. Her hair wasn't greasy, her eyes didn't hurt. She swore her heard wasn't even beating anymore. The strip of yellow was in front of her.

She started walking toward it.

 _Trust_

The voice didn't become anything. She didn't even know if it was a voice. The yellow got closer and closer. She could feel its warmth, hear a hum.

 _Yours_

Up close, the yellow looked like the side of a waterfall. Like raining gold.

She reached out to touch it.

It pulsed when she made contact. She stumbled back, wobbled on the edge of the bridge.

Fell.

Wanda opened her eyes and threw her hand over her hammering heart. Jesus, was that a dream or just a power-infused sleep jolt? She shook her head, stared up at the familiar gray ceiling.

 _Where are they?_

That…wasn't her voice.

 _They said they'd be—_

Wanda gasped, slapped her hand onto her side.

 _Fucking Strucker. He said he had something stronger._

It was Pietro's.

It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense at all, but she was hearing her brother's voice…his thoughts. There was no doubt in her mind. She'd…formed some connection or…

More than that. No, she couldn't just hear his thoughts. She knew exactly where his thoughts were coming from.

Impossible.

Wanda got to her feet and walked to the other side of the room. Pressed her hands and ear against the wall. God, she could _feel_ him. She smiled, let the tears run down her face. They'd put them in adjacent rooms this whole time. Her brother was less than a foot from her.

She called his name in her head, but his thoughts didn't stray from his pain and getting meds. It should've discouraged her, but nothing had felt better in weeks. She pressed as much of her body as she could against the wall.

"I'm here," she whispered before her door opened.


	7. The White & Wary

Pietro

It was two months since the experiment. He knew because it was also the day he woke up having prematurely aged so much that his hair turned fucking white.

It was any normal morning in the hellish existence of being carted in and out of the holding cell. The pain had gone down, and he could go for short spurts being able to deal with people, every day improving in increments. A guard would lead him to the showers with ten minutes allotted to the task. He'd spend one of those minutes actually showering, and nine of them jacking off with his new one-minute refractory period.

It had been a good morning, him having managed to get six orgasms in nine minutes, a new record, and the guard still looked at him like he was actually showering in there. He dried off and changed into his day uniform under the slight cover of a five-foot wall that reminded him of high school locker rooms from the movies. He towel dried his hair.

He looked into the mirror and screamed.

The guard rushed in like a trained dog.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Why didn't you tell me some cocksucker bleached my hair last night?" Pietro demanded, clutching his hair.

God, his hair was white. 100% white. Why would it take two months for this to show up? _Fuck!_

It took the idiot a second to process it before his eyes widened and he started to talk.

"Holy shit, how'd your hair get like that?" the guard exclaimed.

"I'm asking you!"

This was bad. This didn't look like dye. This looked like a really good wig. Even his _eyebrows_ weren't as dark as they had been. Fuck Strucker. Fuck. Strucker.

Pietro looked to the guard, totally out of ideas.

"I'll uh, I'll ask Strucker after your first meal," he said, hands shoved into his pockets.

And thus began the beginning of a particularly sucky day.

He ate breakfast (they finally started giving him more food, after weeks of asking) and a guard escorted him into some sterile looking room to get fitted for clothing, of all things. Pietro always wanted to see Wanda, but lately he just wanted her so someone else could try to understand the strange customs of this place. The last he had heard of his twin, she was stabilizing, whatever that meant. It meant alive, which was all that really mattered.

The doctor was young, male. It was odd, that Pietro had never seen a female working at this place. Not in any roles where he could interact with them? What, did Strucker think Pietro was going to go fuck them all? It should've been obvious by then that Pietro was practically married to his sister.

Pietro watched, leg bobbling, as the doctor started to form a mold over his right hand.

"If you're curious, we're fitting you up for shock gloves. At your speed, if you attempted to punch anything, the target would be destroyed, but your bones aren't invincible."

Pietro winced, remembering what they had had to do to his hand and arm. He'd broken at least five bones. It'd been another discovery, though. He apparently had something called a healing factor, and his arm had been fixed within a day. Didn't make it any less painful, but it was useful.

The doc did something, and Pietro's hand went numb again.

"Did you feel that?" the doctor asked.

Pietro furrowed his brow. "I think the IVs did something to my hand."

The doctor examined Pietro's hand. "Yeah, there seems to be some nerve damage."

"Is it permanent?"

"I don't know, especially when factoring in your healing ability. I doubt it."

Pietro relaxed; how pathetic that he'd become so trusting of strangers.

"I hear they're going to unite you with your sister soon," the doctor said.

Pietro snorted. "They've been saying that for weeks."

"Strucker said tonight."

The butterflies in his stomach were so big they might as well be bats.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Confirm with Strucker, though."

"What changed?"

"He must think you two are ready."

Ready for what? He supposed they hadn't _really_ started training.

God, he'd been so down on himself lately, regretting every second of this experimentation bullshit, but if he got to be with Wanda and actually learn how to use his super speed, maybe this would be worth it after all.

#

Sometime in the afternoon, Strucker and some of his associates led Pietro outside. He hadn't been outside since arriving, and he had to admit, his first feeling was that his eyes burned. And once he got over that, all he could think about was that they were getting rid of him without getting rid of Wanda.

"You see that course?" Strucker said.

Pietro cleared his now permanently agitated mind enough to look at what Strucker was pointing to. "Yeah."

"You said you were a gymnastics champion once, correct?"

"Yeah."

The tailor/doctor/whatever had said his gloves would be ready within the week. He hoped Strucker didn't want him to punch anything.

"How fast can you complete that course?"

It was standard stuff—climbing walls, monkey bars, stairs, poles to balance on.

"Faster than you could count with a stopwatch."

It'd been enough time that Pietro was actually beginning to be confident with his powers. Sure, he might've just said that to impress Strucker, but…the obstacle course actually went well. He didn't miss a beat, and returned to Strucker in less than ten seconds.

That was when he finally saw her.

With his senses so much faster, he noticed her seconds before it hit her. Strucker must've brought her out to the yard while he wasn't paying attention. She stood in a similar stupid looking tan uniform. She didn't look well—skinnier than he remembered, deep bags under her eyes, hair unbrushed—but she was there. She was right there.

It took all his self control to not run to her and accidentally turn her whole body into his hand from a few weeks ago. He ran to her at a seemingly human pace and threw his arms around her. It took her longer than he expected, but she hugged back.

Hard. Arms tight, her fists clenched so hard they were shaking. She buried her face into his chest, pushed her whole body against him. They teetered precariously before submitting to gravity, landing with a soft thud onto the grass.

The feelings came like a tidal wave. He groped for her, pushed her hair out of her face and kissed every inch of her face—forehead, cheeks, then finally her lips. She'd been crying, and he spread the salty taste between them. He didn't even care that Strucker and his scientists were right there. He rolled them over, Wanda on top of him so he could wrap his arms and legs around her, push her in as close as physically possible.

She kissed with the fervor of a starving man seeing food for the first time, the one time that cliche made sense. She kept them connected tongue to tongue, skin to skin, already pushing her hands under his shirt. God, he loved feeling her skin against his. It was like they'd never been separated. One of them was muttering, "I love you, I love you, I love you," over and over again, but Pietro didn't notice which of them it was.

Pietro had no idea how long they laid together, but someone had to physically separate them. He laughed a little as he saw Wanda's blush. She always hated PDA. He couldn't wait for her to chastise him about it.

Once they were both back on their feet, Wanda scooted over to him, put him in another hug. Not as passionate, but with that same need. He leaned his head on hers, just like old times.

"We decided that you two are ready to begin the next phase of training, which wouldn't involve you two being separated. We've prepared new living quarters for you two, and your rules have changed as well." Strucker smiled a bit. "Welcome to the first day of being the world's saviors."

He was never leaving his sister again.

#

The rest of the day was surprisingly low-key. One of Strucker's workers escorted them to their new living area, which was more cheap hotel than prison cell—desk, two dressers, closet, king bed, view of Nova Grad, attached bathroom. Everything provided, including new clothes. They were allowed outside the compound with escorts and under the assumption that they weren't going to run away. They could ask for any luxury and get it, within reason. There were long hours dedicated to training, but otherwise they were free to roam designated areas. Pietro hardly processed a word, every fiber of his being focused on having Wanda back.

It was so strange. Part of him didn't even want to just automatically jump into bed with her. Part of just wanted to…look at her, talk to her, hear what she went through. The way she laid on their bed in her pajamas later that night seemed to indicate what he was thinking.

Then came: "I don't think we should have sex tonight either."

He hadn't said that out loud.

"What…exactly are your powers?" Pietro asked.

"Even Strucker doesn't fully understand it. I can read minds." She hesitated. "I've been connected to your thoughts for weeks. I hope you don't mind. I just—once I formed it, I could've cut it off, but it made everything hurt so much less."

Great, so she knew the mortifying ways he imagined her while he whacked off.

"…Can we still talk to each other, though? Unless you can make that connection mutual."

She ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, of course. I didn't mean to imply—"

"Wow." He smiled. "It's…kinda incredible, isn't it?"

Wanda shifted. "Yeah. It's weird, though. How could the same weapon give one person super speed yet gives another telekinesis and mind-reading abilities?"

The thought hit him for the first time in weeks. "Hey, did you ever hear about any other subjects that survived? All those assholes we sat with the first few days?"

Wanda shook her head. "No, I…I mean, I haven't seen or had any mental interactions with them at all."

"Strucker never mentioned anyone but you. Granted, I never asked about anyone else…"

"He never mentioned anyone else to me either."

"Did you see covered bodies while in the cell?"

"Yeah. Did you?"

"Yeah."

They exchanged looks.

He might've not been able to read Wanda's mind, but they were both thinking the same thing:

Those guys were dead. All of them.


	8. Blessed be the Blissful

Wanda

Even in a world where Wanda could read minds and make objects move without touching them, there were plenty of things that still surprised her.

Waking up to the sound of heavy techno-rock and a hundreds of packets showering her was one of those things.

She opened her eyes to find she'd been showered in condoms, and Pietro was dancing around the room. The music played from a handheld speaker Pietro had connected to the iPod Strucker had bought him. It was an odd song—it had a beat, but the punk put dancing to it at a whole different level. So, naturally, Pietro looked like an idiot dancing, but considering he hadn't danced since they'd walked into one of Novi Grad's last functioning malls years ago, it was a sight to behold.

Everything came into focus bit by bit. She shook her head, separating Pietro's "I LOVE MY LIFE" thoughts from what he was actually saying.

Of course, she couldn't understand a word of what he was actually saying. She could imagine he was singing along to the song, but the lyrics went by so fast that Wanda couldn't even tell what language it was in.

"How can you understand the lyrics?" Wanda asked her brother.

Pietro spoke during a lyrical pause, a few beats at most. "It's easy."

He went back to his one-man dance party before glancing back at her. He paused the music.

"This stuff, all the metal music and electronic and whatever the hell this…the singers are singing so fast that it sounds normal to me."

"It's English, right? Do you understand what they're saying?"

"Most of it." He smiled. "I'll repeat the lyrics, you tell me if you can translate. Deal?"

She shook her head, smiling. "You haven't been this hyper since we were kids."

Pietro "translated" a couple verses, which consisted of beautiful English phrases like, "boo-fucking-hoo you're not the only one whose live's a piece of shit" and "you never realized you have to get in line to suck a cock."

Wanda ended the translation session doubled over laughing, and Pietro returned to his double-fist pump running man whatever the hell dancing.

"So I finally understand English well enough to Google things, and this band, for the record, is set within the genre of 'industrial jungle pussy punk.'"

Wanda paused for a second, getting just the quickest peek into Pietro's mind. He was still shouting about his love for life, but it was laced with memories of all his Googling, how he'd downloaded over $300 worth of music by randomly clicking albums, and snippets of him listening to other songs by this bizarre band.

"Can you believe any of this is real?" Wanda mused.

"I prefer to think of this as a big dose of 'it's about time something shitty wasn't happening to us.'"

Wanda took the iPod and changed it to a song where she at least recognized the artist.

"You're so mainstream," Pietro said as he took Wanda by the hips.

She let the music wake her up fully, hands around his neck, gyrating her hips lazily to the music. It felt like time had stopped, somehow. Of course she and Pietro had snuck into the crumbling clubs of Novi Grad from time to time, but it was always so measured. They could only stay long enough to have time to make the exchange with whatever willing restaurant owner would give them his leftovers or find a safe house to squat at. They could never lose themselves. But now, they had days off, they had stretches where they could just be. They could stay in this room dancing until evening and still ask for breakfast like it was eight in the morning.

They didn't dance all that long, but neither of them looked at a watch to stop. She just pulled herself in closer, resting her head on his chest. She couldn't tell if it was just her, but Pietro felt warmer since the experiments.

"Check this out," Pietro said.

Before she could ask what, Pietro picked her up, everything went by in a blur, and they were in the kitchen.

She swore she felt time catching up to her, and it felt like a steel toed boot to the gut and a really bad neck ache.

"Wanda, breathe!" Pietro said half-jokingly.

Wanda hadn't even realized she'd held her breath until she forced herself to start sucking air in.

He set her down gently, and she hoped he couldn't sense her head rush. One day, she'd have to tell him how much she hated being in his arms as he ran at top speed. Hopefully it'd be soon.

"Hey Maximoffs, do you wanna go to Novi Grad today?" Daniel asked them as they were just about done with breakfast.

Everyone spoke English now. It'd been one of the little things Strucker wanted. Wanda was still a bit timid about speaking it, and she looked to Pietro to answer.

"Oh, we can leave the compound? How kind of you," Pietro replied.

Of course, Pietro spoke an entirely different dialect of English than she could even attempt. Everyone seemed to focus on Pietro's physical powers, but the way the scepter had sped up his thinking and learning was as incredible to her.

Daniel offered a wry smile. "I wasn't originally going to put you on a leash…"

"Good luck putting the leash on."

"For all you know, we already implanted bombs under your skin."

Judging by Pietro's eyebrow quirk, it was a joke, but Wanda still wasn't…completely comfortable. Strucker called it trust building, but why would he even fear that they'd run away if they'd signed up for the program?

"Great, so afternoon or evening?" Daniel asked.

"Evening," Wanda said, reading Pietro's mind.

Pietro, mouth halfway open, looked to Wanda and nodded.

#

"Do you think Strucker changed something genetic in us?" Pietro asked as the two of them walked back from another routine meeting with Strucker.

"Like that would affect our kids?" Wanda replied.

"Yeah. Would our kids have powers like us?"

"It was an experiment. I don't feel like it changed our DNA or anything."

"Would you want them to?"

"They're going to have enough hurdles. I wouldn't want—"

Wanda stopped. Her gaze snapped to Pietro, who'd lost the musing expression.

They'd admitted their love for one another since a particularly teen angst and hormone-filled night when they were eighteen, and they'd really, been functioning between beloved siblings and boyfriend/girlfriend ever since. They didn't need to talk about the future since it was so obvious that they'd always be together. There was no one better, there was no breaking up. They'd lamented not being able to marry in Mama's wedding dress or slide their parents' wedding rings on each other's fingers, but they'd never talked about the legalities of getting married, or when it would happen. They'd only mentioned children in a "we can't have them now" sense.

He touched her wrist, grip light.

"We've never admitted it, y'know. That we would ever want kids," Pietro said.

"Later. Much later."

He smiled. "It's kinda nice that it's possible."

"You know what they still say…"

Pietro chuckled. "We're two mutated freaks and you're worried about incest?"

"One of us has to be conscious of it."

He stepped in, wrapped an arm around her.

"If God doesn't want us to be together, let him smite me down now."

"Why you?"

"Because you'll be conscious of our mutant incest baby's social hurdles. And you kind of have to be alive to give birth to it."

She smiled, ran a hand through his hair. His dark roots were starting to poke through, and as much as she hadn't liked his bleached look, it was growing on her. It looked beautiful, in a way.

"And I thought your powers changed that."

"If anything, your powers will let you just magic babies out of thin air."

She laughed. "It's getting a little crowded down here, don't you think?"

He grinned. "Actually, I was thinking…" He eyed a door as they walked. Kicked the door open. "Give me your okay."

He pulled her into what seemed like a supply closet, flicked the lights on, door locked behind them.

"You are so damn _kinky_ ," Wanda said, giggling. She pulled him in closer. "What if they catch us?"

"Then I hope they don't start getting jealous," Pietro replied, giving her their first kiss of the session. Pietro started unzipping his pants. "If this lasts two seconds it's because of my powers, I swear."

She'd almost forgotten about their powers.

For the past few days, anything physical they did was more focused on him not hurting her with his powers. They'd been taking advantage of his tiny refractory periods.

But they'd hadn't done anything with her powers yet.

Wanda smirked. "So, I wanna try something…"

If she could read his mind…

"Tell me."

"Let's really be one. Physically and mentally."

"What do I have to do?"

"Absolutely," she pulled his cock out, "nothing."

She gave him a flash of a grin before kissing up his shaft, the way he died for. The moment her lips made contact with his sensitive skin, tiny bursts of pleasure bolted through his brain. In his head, hooked up to those same nerve endings, she felt every spark. Her hand automatically wanted to move to her own genitals, but she resisted. Kept her grip on his shaft, his hip, as she squeezed her thighs together.

It was like discovering a whole new part of her own body. She licked him, pressed her tongue flat along the underside of his shaft, sucked him off as deep as she was willing to go. It was intoxicating, feeling everything he was feeling. Moments would pass where she'd forget herself, want to go deeper than her gag reflex would allow. She'd forget that it wasn't her own moans or writhing body.

She knew she could only keep the teasing up so long, and soon she was in as much agony as he was. Heart hammering in her chest, dripping wet, she surrendered to their desire.

Pietro gasped exactly once, when she found herself bucking her hips against him with the same fervor she took his head in and out.

Pietro's mind had been filled with sensation and hazy memories and rose-colored images of her actually sucking him off, but now there were words.

 _What's she thinking about?_

So he hadn't figured out what she'd done yet. Her precious, blockheaded brother.

Wanda made sure Pietro was watching as her mouth filled with his cum. Riding his wave of pleasure, Wanda swore it couldn't get better.

Then she came right after him.

She barely managed to not choke on her own moaning, and the first image she saw was Pietro's shocked and awe-stricken face.

"Did you just come?" Wanda grinned. "You just stole my orgasm."

"Rode it."

"Do I get to ride anything?"

"I dunno." She pulled off her panties, guided Pietro's hand under her dress. "Do you?"

He grinned. "Shit, you're soaked."

"Can you top it?"

"You better believe it." He started circling her clit.

"What do you wanna do to me?"

He leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Fuck you so hard we both can't walk for the rest of the day."

"Give me your best shot."

His hand went away, and he crushed into her, mouth, hands, and body. She grinded against him, dug her hands under his shirt, waited for him to pop right back up. He hadn't been lying about his almost nonexistent refractory period, and God, it filled up their lovemaking sessions like never before.

"I love you," he muttered as he put a hand behind her head and slammed her body against the closet door.

He hit her hard, but it was like someone had turned off pain receptors. She wrapped her legs around his waist, hands around his neck and twisted into his hair.

"You sure you can make me come, 'tro?" Wanda teased.

"Don't doubt it for a second."

They made eye contact, smiled, shared on last kiss.

"I love you too," she said.

Pietro adjusted his hold on her hips, she secured herself, and he went for that first thrust in, tip to base in one go. She gasped, exhaled a sigh. He paused. Smiled. Took it slow, in and out.

God, she could kill him, the way he knew her like this. She dug her nails into his scalp, bucked against him, tightened her legs, anything to get him to go faster.

"You're gonna rip out my hair," Pietro said. "Just say the word."

"Faster."

And he did it. Faster, harder, everything she could've ever imagined and a level above. She knew how he got when he lost control, how his thrusts became so fast that they were almost like having a sex toy, and just the thought had her going mad.

How did couples do it, without knowing each other so wholly as she and Pietro did? He knew every stroke to do, every speed, a counter to her every gasp and moan.

She could hear the thud every time her back hit the door. No sound sounded sweeter, deep as he went. She felt weightless, god-like, in an ecstasy that existed even less than they did.

The orgasm came slower than the last, but with more force than she knew what to do with. She tightened her legs, shifted her hips, savored him as deep as he went, hitting every perfect spot on her. Fuck, she could just about _explode_.

As the orgasm crept up in the last few seconds, she saw the red glow emit from her hands. There was nothing she could do to stop it.

"Pietro," she said through bated breath.

She didn't know what she wanted to say next.

She cried out, and everything in the room came crashing down. She felt the wetness from all sides, and suddenly they were falling backward.

The bulb of the closet was suddenly replaced with the clinical white light they lit the hallways with. Somehow, they had landed Pietro on his back. She adjusted her dress automatically to cover her ass.

She waited a second, clit still pulsing, to take everything in.

The first thing she saw as she came to was Pietro's smiling face.

"Holy _shit_ ," he said.

She glanced around the hallway. The door was off the hinges a few feet from them, cleaning products strewn everywhere. Workers were staring at them.

Holy shit was right.

#

"Why do you think Strucker hasn't talked to us yet?" Wanda whispered to Pietro as they walked along the streets of Novi Grad, Daniel a few steps behind them.

"About what?"

Wanda gave him a look. "Definitely not unhinging a steel door while having sex in a closet."

"What's he gonna be mad about? The door?"

"We haven't…" she paused, "talked about our sexual relationship with him. Now it's not like we can both ignore it."

He put an arm around her, pulled her in closer. "Jesus, you're more high-strung than me. It'll be fine." He glanced back. "Let's ditch Daniel."

"No."

Pietro waited a few moments, and when he realized she wasn't joking, he slumped a little. "Your powers made you boring."

"I was always boring."

It shouldn't have surprised Wanda, but Novi Grad really hadn't changed since they left. Still barely holding up facades of functionality, trash and rubble among remaining buildings. Neon signs with letters not lit up, shop owners shooing away homeless people, everyone either trudging their feet or practically running to get from A to B. It also smelled worse than Wanda remembered; strong like urine, but too heavy, too sweet to be that.

She recognized it as death the moment she and Pietro happened upon the corpse of a dog. It lay in a gutter, covered in a single black line of tire tracks, the edges of its once white fur tinged in brown. It was a terrier, like the dog their neighbors had owned back when Pietro and Wanda had a home. Wanda didn't know what it was, but she was suddenly overcome with sadness, tears choking her up before she ever registered it. Just looking at it, she knew its whole story—how its family had kicked it out without money to feed it, how it had sulked outside the apartment until the complex was destroyed with more shells, how it had wandered around Novi Grad until its sudden death. It had loved as strongly as anyone could.

Pietro put a hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, you don't need to see that."

But then, the strangest thing happened: the dog began to move.

Wanda clutched Pietro's arm. "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

The dog kicked a few times, rolled over. Shook the mud off.

Had she seen the injuries wrong? Jesus, was the dog okay? It looked…it looked okay.

The dog looked right at her, cowered a bit.

Wanda let go of Pietro and approached the dog. Cautious, like she'd approached the neighbors' dog as a child. It scooted away, but stopped. Wanda held her hand out, and the dog crept up, snuggled its wet nose into her palm. She never thought she'd miss the sensation of a dog's nose.

"It's okay," Wanda cooed. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

She lowered herself to her knees and scratched the dog under its chin. Its eyelids drooped. Wanda smiled, scratched under the dog's ears, stroked its back, rubbed its belly when it rolled over for her.

She wondered if Strucker would let her take the dog in. The animal shelters in Novi Grad were worse off than the homeless shelters, and this dog seemed fine, just a little stunned. She found herself grinning like a child as the dog's leg started to vibrate as she found its sweet spot. It was a little girl, she noticed as she pet it. No collar. She didn't know why, but she already knew what she'd name it: Zoya. Life. It was so cheesy, but she knew what it was like to have to clutch onto life for the precious thing it was. She knew how hard it was to keep. She'd love this dog so it'd forget it the way she had.

"Wanda…"

Pietro was behind her. "What?"

"What're you doing?"

Wanda broke away from looking at Zoya and saw the concern on Pietro's face. Daniel was standing a few feet away, just as confused. She peeked into Pietro's head, and…

He couldn't see Zoya.

Wanda turned around, and Zoya was gone.

Not gone. Not really. Her body was still right where she'd originally seen it, tire tracks and mud and all.

Pietro took her arm. "C'mon Wanda, you're standing in a gutter. Let's go."

As quickly as the tears had left seeing Zoya alive, they were back as Pietro pulled her away from the limp dog.

"No! She was alive. She was—I—she was—"

"Wanda, you walked into a gutter and started petting the air. Whatever toxic waste is leaking into the air must've gotten to you."

"She was alive. She stood up and—"

"The dog is dead, Wanda. It's been dead this whole time."

Pietro couldn't leave Zoya here. If she really was dead, the flies and rats would tear her beautiful body apart. Not this one. Not this beautiful little soul. The idea made her sick.

She broke away from Pietro with a single hex and dumped her body onto the wet pavement to scoop Zoya into her arms.

"Oh my God, Wanda, put that down! It has diseases!" Pietro continued to say.

"No! You don't—she's not—I'm not leaving her like this." She hugged the cold dog closer. "I'm not leaving her like this."

Pietro exchanged a look with Daniel.

"What do you want us to do?" Pietro asked.

"Just let me bury her, cremate her. Something."

Wanda wondered if Daniel forgot that she could hear every, "stupid girl, what's she care so much about this fucking dog she found five minutes ago?" passing through his head. Pietro, at least, was only concerned for her well-being, no judgement. Even if it was possible that he was now sheltering his thoughts for her sake.

Their little vacation was cut short, Daniel escorting them up to a remote location on the mountain Strucker's base stood on to hand-bury the dog. Wanda took responsibility for her burden, but Pietro took over the digging by the end.

"I'm sorry I wasn't supporting you," he said as he shoved up the last few piles of dirt. "Out of everyone, I should know why you value the dead so much."

They still hadn't talked about Wanda's hallucination.

"It wasn't your fault. You were just looking out for me."

Pietro straightened out, cracking his back. "So, what do you wanna say about the dog?"

Wanda picked it up, pillow-case wrapped body and all, and placed it into Pietro's hole. He handed her the shovel.

"Blessed be the innocent and trusting in this shitty world," Wanda said as she shoved a scoop of dirt into the grave.

"Amen to that," Pietro said as he dumped his own scoop.

Wanda watched Pietro bury Zoya, a dog she swore had been so alive, the image burned its way into her brain, the way something much darker usually would. She didn't know what it was. Maybe it was because they'd never had a funeral for their parents. Maybe it was seeing Pietro, her beacon of hope and life, dancing so close with an image of death. It almost didn't matter.

All she knew was that whenever the nightmares came back, as they always did, that image was shuffled in right alongside their dead parents' mangled bodies on the first floor of the apartment, the scepter, and that second shell.


	9. Out of Our League

Wanda

"I know the training hasn't gotten as rigorous as it will, but you two must understand that you're soldiers now."

Baron Strucker had waited twenty-four hours since the closet incident to talk to them about it. Pietro had actually forgotten about it.

Wanda glanced at her brother. Forgotten about it, and apparently couldn't give two shits about it at that point in time.

"And as soldiers, there are certain expectations we have of you."

Wanda found herself staring just beyond Baron Strucker. She hoped she wasn't blushing; she already knew she was fidgeting nearly as badly as Pietro.

"Now, we're not robots. We know you two are young, and we know the value of stress relief."

Wanda had only gotten a basic overview of a "here's what sex is, don't do it until you're older" talk from her mother as a child, and everything else they'd learned from overheard talk on the streets. She wondered if this was what the sex talk would've felt like if they'd gotten one as teenagers.

"But there are certain risks we are not willing to take. You two need to be in top condition, and as it goes, being pregnant is not top condition."

"We were using protection. We know," Pietro answered.

"What specific type of protection?"

"Condoms," Pietro answered. "I ordered them through your sources. We've never been able to afford the pill."

"I'd like Wanda to start a more reliable birth control method right now."

Baron Strucker said this, and then looked to her. Like she wasn't there.

"What method?" Wanda asked, not meaning to actually say a word.

"If you even mention something permanent…" Pietro warned.

Baron Strucker gave Pietro the briefest glance. The words, not yet flashed through his mind.

"I discussed this with my doctors, and it was between an intrauterine device or hormone shots. The implant has less side effects, but in light of your enhancements, we weren't confident on how reliable it would be." Baron Strucker turned to her. "You'll receive hormone shots every three months, starting now until your service ends."

Pietro scowled. "She doesn't get a say in this?"

"It's not about personal comfort, Mr. Maximoff. It's about hard facts, and the hormone shots are the most reliable and simple form of birth control we can give you two. It's either this or you two give up sexual relations. We all know the second option isn't viable, so this is how we're going to handle this."

Pietro looked to Wanda, and she tried not to absorb his apprehension and anger to go with what was already brewing in her gut.

"It's okay. Baron Strucker's right," Wanda managed to say.

An hour later, Wanda braced herself for her first shot in years. Or, the first shot she'd received that she was fully lucid for; doctors had given her dozens of vaccines while she was still coming to terms with her powers. Maybe it was suggestion, but she swore that hormone shot hurt more because she hadn't come up with the idea herself.

She felt ridiculous, and Pietro's ranting afterward did nothing to change that. He called it a violation of her human rights, but didn't the ends justify the means? This was the best form of birth control she could get. They never had to think about using condoms ever again.

"Yeah, and what do you think happens if you do miraculously get pregnant? Would the end justify the means then?" Pietro said as they walked back to their room.

"They wouldn't—"

"You think you'd get a maternity leave? They'd abort that baby before even you realized you had it."

"It won't happen."

"I can deal with them buying our food and deciding how we train, but this is getting…unsettling."

"I'm sure every army is like this."

Pietro glanced around. "Wouldn't bet on that."

He looked to her arm, with the new bandage. She rubbed it.

"I looked up what they're giving you. It causes bone weakening over time. Hope they don't plan to keep you on it long."

She pushed him away. "Stop talking like that. I get it, you're paranoid, but it's like you said, it's about time something shitty wasn't happening to us. Let it be. We're still in control."

#

Training did start to get harder, and it all seemed to come at once. Hours increased, tasks more refined, boundaries pushed. Baron Strucker was convinced that Wanda could do more than just the telekinesis and mind reading, but there was no easy way to discover something none of them were sure was there. It'd leave her mentally exhausted, the room spinning while Baron Strucker ranted about how she wasn't trying hard enough. It was stressful, yes, but it never got bad until he started combining hers and Pietro's training.

"As I'm sure you two are aware, I believe in the power of twins. I believe there's a reason you two specifically were gifted with powers. I believe you two were meant to work in tandem." Baron Strucker smiled. "We're going to explore those possibilities today."

 _Overdramatic prick._ Wanda had become an expert at a poker face when it came to Pietro's thoughts. A few weeks ago, she would've broken out laughing at his commentary, frowned in that instant. She shifted her weight, knowing Pietro would get her acknowledgement.

"With our current understanding of your powers, I see you two as such: Wanda is the gun, and Pietro is the handler. At the speeds Pietro can go, together, you two could be a teleporting gun. Deadly, efficient, something no one could see coming on a battlefield. An omnipresent hitman. Pietro, what's the easiest way for you to hold Wanda so she could land on her feet quickly?"

Pietro turned to face her, looked her over. He shrugged, picked her up bridal style. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Technically I could run faster with her on my back, but it'd be hard to get her off," Pietro said.

"We'll try this for now."

Pietro shifted, moved Wanda a bit into a more comfortable position.

"What're we doing?" Pietro asked.

A few of Baron Strucker's workers brought out several dummies, each holding rather large guns.

"They're programmed to lock onto you two as targets, and will shoot with the average reflexes of any human on a battlefield. Your task is to destroy them all as fast as you can without any of them hitting you."

Wanda exchanged a look with her brother.

"Are those things actually loaded?" Pietro asked.

"Rubber bullets."

That…didn't sound as bad?

Pietro shrugged. "Let's go."

Pietro adjusted her one last time, and started running.

She felt the discomfort right away. It was like being on a roller coaster a few speeds too high for her, and she swore she hadn't even blinked when the world wasn't blurred anymore. Pietro swiftly dropped her to the ground, and she stumbled to make sense of the world. She puffed out a breath and focused on her task. She spotted one of the dummies, who still hadn't realized where she and Pietro had gone, conjured an orb of energy, and shot the thing down. She turned to face the next one, but one millisecond she was on the ground and the next she was in a whole other location.

Pietro said something, but he was speaking too fast to understand. She barely grasped for her bearings and made another shot. Missed it. Shot again. Hit—

Pietro moved them to another location, dropped her quicker. She stumbled, vertigo suddenly unwilling to leave. She fought through it, looked up, shot again at what looked vaguely like a target. Her vision was still adjusting, so it was hard to say. She tried to find the next target, but a full 360 degree turn didn't produce results.

"Where's—?" she began to say, but Pietro threw her back into his arms.

New location. The vertigo hadn't worn off from the last location, her vision still not adjusted, and now she could feel it in her stomach too. Pietro grabbed her shoulders and moved her to face some specific place. She conjured a hex, shot it, but had absolutely no idea if it hit anything.

This time, Pietro just grabbed her, her head against his neck, and their location changed again. She didn't even get to look up before he moved them again.

Her mind was saying the words, " _could we take a break?_ " but her body was too busy vomiting for the words to manifest.

Getting physically ill wasn't quite the cathartic experience she needed, and it prepared it very little to suddenly see a bullet whizzing toward her.

Pietro ran out in front of her, and the bullet stopped. He turned to face her, bullet in hand.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pushing her hair out of her face with his free hand.

She exhaled. "Give me a minute."

He smiled a bit. "Look like you need more than a minute, Silk Spectre."

He held out a hand to help her up, but she rolled back from her hands and knees into a sitting position, head in her hands. She had just enough of a sense of dignity to not collapse to the ground.

"Up and at 'em, Miss Maximoff. Repetition is the only thing that'll make you improve," Baron Strucker said, walking by without even looking at her.

Pietro put a hand on her shoulder. "Wanda had an extreme physical reaction to your so-called training less than a minute ago and you want her to keep going?"

Baron Strucker turned to her, sneered at her. "What would you like, Miss Maximoff? Is your brother right? Do you need more time to recover?" Wanda hesitated, nodded her head. Baron Strucker snatched the bullet out of Pietro's hand, scowled as he looked down at her. "If it wasn't for your brother, your moment of weakness would've killed you. Every second you recover is a second you're a sitting duck. We didn't come this far for you to die from a bullet because you have a weak stomach." He got in close to her. "Do you want to die, Miss Maximoff?"

Wanda broke eye contact, swallowed. "No."

"Then I'd recommend you get up. Everything's ready for another go." Strucker glanced at Pietro. "Does that include you, Mr. Maximoff?"

Wanda held out her hand for Pietro, and he helped her up, despite the screaming of, " _ask her if she wants to die one more time_."

"It's okay," she whispered to him. "I'm sure there's a learning curve. Astronauts do the same thing."

Pietro exhaled. "I'm stopping when I choose to."

She offered him a tiny smile, and they got back to work.

As it turned out, the learning curve wasn't quite as simple as Wanda would've hoped. Training was like being locked on a badly maintained carnival ride. Her mind couldn't keep up with Pietro's, and whether they wanted to or not, they left her stomach several changes back. She tried, God, she tried to hold it together. She didn't even know she had a tendency for that bad of motion sickness, and every trip was like that first one. There was no mind over matter, to the point where it even occurred to her that she could be sustaining actual, dangerous damage to her internal organs. She'd never known a speedster before, nor been a normal human running with a speedster, so who really did know?

Pietro wanted to quit after she puked the second time, but she told him to keep going.

"At least we have the assurance that enemies won't have an easy time maneuvering," Dr. List sneered as he came out to join Strucker some hours later.

Wanda took as deep breaths as she could. She'd stopped taking sips of water some trials back, and now the lightheadedness seemed to be heading for a blackout. Part of her wouldn't mind that instead of another nausea episode. Pietro looked to her, the anger in his head boiling out into his every muscle.

 _Fuck this. Let's just go_ , he thought, knowing she was listening.

Wanda shook her head. They'd gone this far. There had to be a learning curve, they couldn't appear weak. If Strucker dropped them, they wouldn't get paid. They—for God's sake, they were enhanced. This human setback couldn't _actually_ prevent anything. Even if…Even if she wasn't so sure how much longer…

She took one last cleansing breath and climbed on Pietro's back. Pietro said something to her, but she couldn't hear.

"Wanda!" She focused as hard as she could. "Are you even conscious?"

Wanda nodded, rested her head against his shoulder. "We'll get it this time," she whispered through her acid-burned throat.

She ignored his thoughts and he started to run.

She could all but scream when she still felt the same nausea when Pietro stopped. Stars started to dot her vision. She conjured a hex, but damn it if that thing was going anywhere. She could practically time it—

Pietro moved them.

Pietro moved them, but they didn't stop. They crashed. Wanda had absolutely no idea what happened, but one second they were moving, and the next Pietro was skidding on his back on the grass. Her ears started to ring, the blue above her swayed.

Slowly, she began to hear Pietro's cries of pain.

She shot up to the sound.

Finally, her blackout came.

#

Wanda woke up in her bed, Pietro awake next to her, eyes on the TV. They were both under the covers, the room dark.

"What happened?" Pietro said, smiling. "You're not the only one who can read minds."

Wanda rolled her eyes. "You gonna answer my question?"

"I might've purposely rolled my ankle to make the training stop."

God, her stupid, loving brother…

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. It stopped hurting once they set everything. Besides, this thing'll probably be fixed before you feel 100%."

"Does Strucker know?"

Pietro shifted. "I don't know. I don't really care. He went too far. He was killing you out there, and I was done being his tool."

She rolled onto her side, facing him as head on as possible. "You know he wouldn't kill me. He needs us too much."

"Does that mean I should let you suffer? Did you happen to notice the saline drip?" Wanda looked to her left hand, where sure enough, there was a drip. "Yeah, they legitimately fucked you up today. I had every right to intervene."

Wanda exhaled, snuggled in closer to Pietro. "I'm not saying I'm not grateful. I'm just…apprehensive about what he'll do to punish us for it."

He threw an arm around her. "Let him. Can't be any worse than what we've already been through."

He forgot to hide his fear.

"Why did you call me Silk Spectre?" she asked.

He ran his thumb over her fingers. "You know how Laurie would always get sick whenever Jon teleported her anywhere?" Wanda nodded. "Well, the thing is, I remember that detail, but when I think of Silk Spectre, I think of how tough she is, how great of a fighter she is, how when it came down to it, she didn't take anyone's shit. You aren't weak because of what happened today." He smiled. "I'd say you're more powerful than even you know." He leaned in, so his breath was tickling her ear. "And one day, if we have to, we'll show these Frankensteins just what kind of monsters they created."


	10. Poking the Beast

Pietro

A gun sounded their start.

Wanda seemed to weigh less than a backpack as she clung onto him like a baby gorilla. She could hold on tight enough that he could use his arms to pump, to go even faster.

He slid into his stop. It wasn't gradual enough for Wanda to notice, but he wasn't destroying her organ systems with it. Wanda peered around his shoulder. Shot off a hex.

They were off to the next bot before the first one located them. Another stop, another hex.

Off to the next one.

Next, next, next. Like a well-oiled machine they worked.

Once all the bots were in pieces in the grass, Pietro stopped and let Wanda off. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, but was steady on her feet within seconds, before Strucker and List could approach them.

Strucker was smiling.

"Perfect," he said to them.

It'd only taken weeks of grueling practice, him and Wanda secretly experimenting with every cheat they could come up with—Dramamine, meditation, Wanda shoving herself into his consciousness. It turned out the only solution was time, adjusting her body to the conditions like astronauts had to.

She was the true soldier. He'd fought her every step forward with this horrible training, but there she was, standing tall like the badass, dangerous goddess he knew she could be.

God, he loved her.

Strucker liked to give their powers long names, complicated explanations for subsets of abilities. All Pietro knew was that, well, either he and Wanda were mastering their powers more thoroughly than ever, or the powers themselves were evolving. It had seemed so subtle at first, like how Pietro could turn something to smithereens by punching through it at full speed or how Wanda could change the shape and velocity of her hexes to cause different levels of damage.

"Wanda, let's see how your energy shield is coming along," Strucker said.

Wanda separated from him, and he got into position. It was such a fluke, but they let him be the one who'd actually throw things at Wanda when testing out her shield. It was practice for him too, to understand the safe velocity to throw things at to not automatically destroy people before they blinked.

As he picked up a ball to throw, he noticed—God, they thought he wouldn't?—that the ball was heavier than usual. They'd been using dodge balls, but this felt like an exercise ball. He spun it around, eyed Wanda. She nodded, and he threw it at her. Didn't aim for her head, but hopefully Strucker wouldn't notice.

Wanda conjured a red nest of energy around her, and the ball deflected off. She let it down, and he threw another. When he knew she'd "think" about lowering the shield, he threw an extra ball. She hit that one off as well.

She was perfect at that. Pietro knew he had his powers down pact for a while then, but Wanda was really getting to the same place with hers. Honestly, he didn't blame her. He hardly understood her powers.

They exchanged a look, and he could tell from the glint in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing as him. Daniel had joined them in the training area. Wanda ran to him, and Pietro chucked a ball right at him and Wanda. Daniel yelped, cowered even after he realized that Wanda had thrown a shield up to protect them. Strucker's other orderlies laughed.

Strucker nodded as he watched.

"How much can you lift with your powers?" Strucker asked.

Wanda took her cue. Every ball they'd been playing with, at least a hundred pounds total, lifted into the air, surrounded by a cloud of her energy. She was holding them up fine, but he could see her fingers tremble.

She held them up for a second longer than he knew she should've. But that Wanda. Always had been. He'd been able to protect her from bearing their suffering, but she wanted so bad to do it. It was both their fatal flaws, but he was usually better at winning the battle of martyrdom. He wondered what would happen if—when she became more powerful than him. He hated thinking what bearing the true brute of their suffering could do to his sweet little sister. She didn't deserve that. He couldn't stand the thought that she'd become so powerful, so long suffering that she'd forget to shoot him those secret smiles or snuggle into him like a puppy when no one was looking. He…hated to think that she'd lose hope, the way he'd been losing it for years.

Pietro shook his head as Wanda jogged up to him. He was thinking crazy. Wanda was just pushing herself with her powers and Strucker wasn't stopping her. It didn't mean she was going through some crazy emotional transformation. All they needed was each other, and as long as Wanda had him, he'd make sure she was happy.

"He seems impressed," Wanda whispered in his ear.

Classic Wanda. Teacher's pet, Mommy's girl, Daddy's girl, dare he say the pleasing girlfriend. He wished he felt the same satisfaction and making that monocle-wearing ass happy.

Pietro shrugged. "As long as you're happy."

Wanda laced her fingers with his, and God, he didn't know what she did, but every time she sought out physical contact, he felt like he was getting a free ride to Cloud 9. He didn't know the change, but it just felt…better to be with her lately.

Strucker had them go through a few more tasks, and let them go early.

#

"Do you think we'll be sent on field missions soon?" Wanda asked as the two of them lounged in their room, a steamy shower having left them both lazy.

"Dunno. What are we even here for again?"

"To be soldiers."

"But for what? We're not going to be out saving the world like the Avengers, are we?"

"Maybe like special operations soldiers?"

"But to do what? Who are we working for? Not a country, right?"

"No, but S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't associated with America, was it?"

"You're asking the wrong person."

He flipped over, pulled her physically closer to him.

"Do you think our powers will keep evolving?"

"Why? You think you still have more tricks up your sleeve? I think I'm done."

Wanda shrugged. "I still have those weird nightmares sometimes. I still feel like…I don't know, there's something else I'm still not seeing."

"Wanda, I hate to say this, but you having nightmares isn't saying much."

"But they're not my nightmares. They're situations I've never been in, people I've never seen. It just—" She wrung her hands. "Did I ever tell you about a dream I had while we were separated?" He shook his head. "Right before I started hearing your thoughts, I had this dream was I was somewhere in the cosmos, and this voice told me to grab this yellow light. It told me that it was mine, that it'd give me all the power in the world. I ended up touching that light, then I fell into the darkness and woke up. It just felt…I don't know, prophetic. Or, like, it was trying to tell me something. We don't know the origin of what gave us power."

"Some Norse god. I asked one of the orderlies and he said it belonged to that god who attacked New York, Loki or whatever."

Wanda shifted. "Well, that's another dimension, stuff we don't understand. What if that dream I had came from that place where we got our powers? What if I'm—I don't know, more…"

He took her hand. "How powerful do you think you are?"

"I don't know." She paused. "I know I saw the dog's spirit that day. I know you don't believe me, but—there's all this stuff I don't want to tell Strucker about. I don't know why I'm feeling that way. Strucker's our mentor, our boss. I shouldn't be hiding anything from him."

Wanda had never admitted that she didn't trust Strucker before. Pietro didn't know why, but it made him feel…relieved. He was a pessimistic, distrustful person, but if Wanda didn't trust him, then that meant something.

"I think you're being smart," Pietro said.

"But if I don't tell him, how am I ever gonna figure it out on my own? What if…what if I'm dangerous because there's some power I have that I can't control? What if I turn into a monster?"

Pietro smiled, kissed her forehead. "Stop calling my sweetheart of a little sister a monster."

She bit back a smile. "I'm not your little sister. You're _twelve minutes_ older than me."

"Which, by definition, makes me older. Makes me the older brother."

She kissed him. "You know, Daniel was teaching me physics the other day. He said there's some time paradox where if someone travels fast enough, they begin to age slower. So, if that's true, you're actually the younger twin."

"What speed is that?"

"Speed of light."

"Strucker says I run at the speed of sound."

They paused.

"You run at the speed of sound." She laughed. "Do you realize how insane this all is? You run at the speed of sound. I can read minds and create energy forces."

Pietro fell back onto the bed. "We're not even human anymore. Why are we following the rules of all these humans?"

"Because the so-called humans are going to give us Stark."

Pietro hadn't thought about Tony Stark in so long. And, really, no one had mentioned the Avengers in months.

"Why hasn't anyone talked about the Avengers in so long?" Pietro asked.

Wanda shrugged. "They aren't relevant?"

"But aren't we supposed to match them? When does that even happen?"

"Pietro, don't _ask_ for the Avengers to come."

"But if the Avengers don't come, then how are we ever going to confront Stark?" Pietro was on his feet. "I'm tired of not knowing anything. I'm gonna ask Strucker."

Wanda sat up. "Now? Pietro, we can't just go talk to him."

"Why not? We're his volunteers. We deserve to have answers." They stopped. "Are you gonna come with me?"

She exhaled. "Yes."

Pietro scooped her into his arms and ran to Strucker's office.

Strucker wasn't startled when they walked in, watched them with almost bored eyes as they made their way in.

"We want to know what's going on," Pietro said as he set Wanda in a chair.

Strucker looked up, quirked a brow. "Wanda doesn't seem all that interested to deserve a 'we.'" Strucker paused. "What do you want to know about?"

He looked back up at Strucker, at his fucking monocle and condescension and secrets. Looking at Pietro and his sister like they were children, trained animals.

"You said we would get Tony Stark," Pietro said. "When does that come?"

"I have no control over when the Avengers decide to come for us."

"You said when."

"We have things they want. I'm not stupid. I'm sure one of them will come sooner or later."

Then it hit him.

"Which one?"

"Which one what?"

"Which one would come? There are at least five of them. Probably more."

"I cannot control which Avenger they send out, Mr. Maximoff."

"You can't guarantee anything. You can't even guarantee that Stark will ever come."

"Why the sudden interest in Stark? You came here to get paid, to get out of poverty, didn't you?"

Pietro didn't know what happened. He lost it. Maybe it was a long time coming.

"Do you really thinking _paying me_ can make up for what you did to me? Do you have any idea what it's like to live inside my head now? I haven't relaxed since you gave me these fucking powers. I'll end up starving with the new metabolism and not the money to compensate. You _tortured_ us, didn't tell us shit about what we were going into! No one's taught us anything! We've had to learn everything ourselves, figure out how not to lose our minds with these so-called enhancements. Do you think you _taught_ Wanda how to ride with me, how to make those shields, how to block out everyone's thoughts enough to sleep at night? The least you could do is let us right the one wrong that destroyed our lives in the first place!"

Pietro burst out of his seat, and Strucker met him. God, he hadn't seen Strucker this close since the procedure.

"Would you care to repeat that, Mr. Maximoff?" Strucker said. "I'm having a hard time believing that my soldier could sound so much like an ungrateful child. Remember who made you what you are. If I decide I no longer need you, I'm perfectly happy with keeping Wanda and slowing you back down forever."

"Don't talk to him like that!"

Pietro looked to his sister. His silent sister, suddenly on her feet, her hex energy still trailing off her fingertips, her eyes glowing red.

And Strucker was suddenly back in his seat, eyes dead forward, like he was staring at nothing.

"What did you do?" Pietro demanded.

The power left Wanda, and Pietro stood face to face with the terrified girl he'd protected for years. He…remembered that that power had come out of her.

"I don't…" she said.

The panic began to rise. He told himself that he had no idea what to do, but he found himself grabbing Wanda, throwing her over his shoulder, as if that was somehow better than bridal style, and running out of the room. Running at his top speed through the hallways, up the stairs, until they were back in their room.

He hugged her as soon as he knew the door was locked. Mumbled, "You're gonna be okay."

"I didn't mean to…" she mumbled into his chest. "I just—the thought of him taking you from me, I couldn't stand to even hear it…"

"It's okay."

She clutched onto the fabric of his shirt. "God, we just left him there. What if I killed him?"

 _Doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world._

"You didn't."

"You don't know that."

"And you don't? What was in his head?"

She pulled away, panicked tears making her mascara run. "Something…something with a little boy dying. I don't know what it was…a memory, a fear…"

"If he was thinking something, he was clearly alive."

"He's gonna think I did it on purpose. They'll punish us. They'll separate us again."

He tightened his grip on her. The thought didn't even make him frightened or sad anymore. The thought of losing Wanda did nothing more than enrage him. There was no way anyone was going to separate them again. He'd endured enough of Hydra's shit already for them to ever try something like that.

"They're insects to us," Pietro said. "If they try to even lay a hand on you, I'll kill them. Nothing is going to separate us."

"Pietro…"

"I killed for you on the streets. These guys decided to give me their so-called enhancements. They accepted the risks. They should know better, to try to overpower us now." Wanda sniffled, said nothing. Shivered. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I just—they're not gonna separate us, okay? If we get any vibes that they're going to change what we've already been doing, we'll leave."

"Without the money?"

"We'll make it work. We're enhanced, right? We're better off than we were months ago."

Even if the idea of leaving all this luxury for a life back on the streets was nearly impossible to swallow.

For a while, the two of them sat together in silence, Pietro waiting for Wanda to calm down by listening to her breathing pattern. Mom and Dad used to always say that when they were babies, if one of them woke up, the presence of the other would make each of them stop crying. Pietro always used to figure the effect had gone away as the two of them reached late childhood, but he still felt such a connection to Wanda. He wondered if a therapist would call it infantile, the way all it took was each other's touch to make the other twin stop crying, stop feeling anxious and upset.

"Pietro?"

Pietro perked up. "Yeah?"

"You know how I told you that I think my power has more to it?"

"Yeah."

"I…I'm scared to find out what else I can do."

He squeezed her hand. "You know how I said there's nothing you can ever do that will make you into a monster in my eyes?"

"Yeah…"

"Today doesn't change that."

He kissed her fingers.

#

It took until that night for anyone to make contact with them. Wanda had fallen asleep in his arms, and Pietro watched as she was startled awake by a loud rapping on the door.

Neither of them said anything, but the door opened regardless. Strucker stood in the doorway.

"Mental manipulation," Strucker said. "You have telekinesis, psionic abilities, and mental manipulation. My red witch indeed." He smiled a little. Just a glimpse. So fast he suspected Wanda didn't catch it. "We'll have to add to your training."

Strucker left.

 _I saw that._


	11. A Blast from the Past

Pietro

If there was one thing Baron Wolfgang von Strucker was good at, it was patting them on the back after a whipping. Pietro couldn't even tell if Wanda noticed, the guy was so subtle. It was like he planned these things. Wanda had made a request for makeup some days back, and she'd gotten most of it, but they'd gotten the wrong type of eyeliner. The morning after Wanda discovered she could project fear, there was a liquid eyeliner pencil waiting at the breakfast table.

"Sorry it took so long," Daniel said as Wanda picked up the pencil. "Hard to find quality in Novi Grad, you know?"

Wanda smiled. "Thank you."

Wanda set the pencil down, and Pietro picked it up. He was no expert on makeup, but the pencil didn't look all that nice.

"This the brand you like?" Pietro asked.

They'd been there long enough that she'd already gone through one pencil.

Wanda gave him a look.

 _He's trying to buy your forgiveness. He knows how dangerous you are now._

Wanda watched as Daniel left the room.

"He's going to teach me how to use it. I don't know where you're getting this paranoia from," Wanda said.

"Where? Oh, I don't know. Maybe that time he threatened to kill me if I kept complaining?"

"It was an isolated incident."

"He doesn't care about us."

"You know that's not true."

Pietro threw his arms up. "Oh, you're right. He cares about us. As investments."

"What, are you expecting him to take us in as children? We're volunteers for an army. We knew that."

"What are we even doing this for anymore, Wanda? What cause are we fighting for? If we're supposedly being trained to help Sokovia, why haven't we been sent into Novi Grad to help them, like normal soldiers do?"

"You're asking about if he values us, and he's showing it right there. He's not letting us on any missions until we're ready."

"How are we not ready?"

"I just discovered that I have an entirely new subset of my powers and you think I'm _ready_? What is he doing, Pietro? Is he holding us back or pushing us too far? Make up your mind."

He watched her use a hex to stir her coffee, his appetite soured. He hated even the stupidest of bickering with Wanda, but he just…he knew he was right about this. He wouldn't back down. Wanda had to realize it soon.

They drifted through the rest of the day like ghosts, only communicating when the topic looked nothing like Strucker.

Strucker continued to pamper them. New clothing the next week. He unveiled a new gym for them to use at their leisure. He left a pile of dark brown hair dye on Pietro's bed, as if it was some apology present for the white hair. Training was hard, but never as crazy as it was earlier on. Whenever Pietro asked Wanda if Strucker mentioned working on her mental manipulation, she claimed he hadn't even breeched the subject. She lost the edge she around him days following the incident.

Gradually, gradually, Pietro began to loosen up. Strucker would come in while he and Wanda were working out to pull her aside to ask questions, but there was never any weird training when it came to her mental manipulation.

"Have you tinkered with it?" Pietro asked her as they got ready for bed some time in the lull.

"No."

Already read his mind. He'd gotten so used to using verbal shorthand with Wanda; it made him wonder how on earth he'd relearn how to communicate with non-mind readers.

"Have you thought about it?"

"Not really."

"You don't want to learn?"

"I'll learn when Strucker wants me to learn. I don't even know what I'm capable of, and I'm not about to risk anyone's lives around me to test it out."

"But don't you think it'll be easier if you try it out a little now, so you're not going in totally naive when he wants to start training?"

"Who would I test it on? You? I'm not going to make you see your worst fear."

"I'd rather endure some bad nightmares than have you not be able to defend and empower yourself because you're scared of what you don't understand yet."

"Pietro…"

"Are you really insulted when I call you little sister?"

She looked away. "No."

He took her hand. "I've just…I feel like it's always been that way. Our birth weights, who came out first, who was always protecting the other…I know it's not rational but I…"

 _In a perfect world, I never want to think that you're helpless._

"Learning how to control people's minds won't make me empowered, it will make me a villain."

"Why do you see it that way?"

"Who deserves to have their worst fears splayed out in front of them? What does that do but destroy people?"

"How is that any different from the physical injuries we can inevitably cause people with our powers? I think it's a strength of yours. A unique one."

Wanda took a deep breath. "You want me to be more powerful than Strucker."

"We already are."

"Not enough for you."

"He can restrain us, cut off our limbs, whatever sick shit he can think of. He can't turn off your brain. If things ever got bad, he couldn't fight against that."

"What has Strucker done since yelling at you that makes you think he's got something horrible planned for us?"

"Why did he never tell us that all the other volunteers died? Why'd he care so little when you were hurting yourself during training? Why have we never been publicly shown to anyone around here? The Avengers do interviews and charity and—you're the intuitive one. How are we not seeing the same thing?"

She turned away from him. "Might it have something to do with the fact that you started hating everything ever since we survived the experiments?"

Pietro knew he wouldn't be able to articulate how much that hurt, nor that he really had to. He was the one who averted eye contact. He watched her expression soften out of his peripheral vision.

"Pietro…" She crawled over to him. "I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean that. You're just—it scares me, thinking that. It's easier to avoid thinking about that." She rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, big brother."

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then, if I say it, will you listen to me? Run away with me?"

"Yes."

She kissed the back of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. He felt it go by each vertebrate.

It wasn't pleasure.

#

Pietro was trying to be positive. He really was. He'd smile whenever Wanda looked his way, he tried hard during training, he did everything to be a perfect soldier.

"Do you think your powers work on animals?" Pietro asked as he and Wanda took their gradually growing freedom to use passes to explore the other facilities within Hydra. There was some areas Pietro hadn't even gotten to, and he may have 'convinced' Daniel to give him the key. As in he stole it.

"I'm not going to hurt animals," Wanda said.

"It's not hurting them."

"If I bring out fear in them, that's hurting them. Scientists in the past have been hated because they manipulated fear in people."

"Wanda, you're not a scientist. I don't think the same ethics apply."

"I'm not causing innocent people or animals distress so you can see someone else go catatonic like Strucker."

The pass only got them so far. Into some stairwells they didn't go in otherwise.

"Okay, fine. Don't use your powers to manipulate minds. Can you read this building, tell me where their secret door is?"

"Pietro, this isn't a spy movie. There aren't secret doors."

"You keep sleep talking about seeing lakes in craters. I know you're psychometric. Let's go."

Wanda huffed, put her hands to the wall. "I bet you don't even know what psychometry is."

"Have you told Strucker about that yet? The seeing dead people?"

"No. If I'd discovered the fear projection thing earlier, I wouldn't have told him about that."

"So you're waiting for Strucker to train with you with the mental manipulation, but you would've never told him about that?"

"It's not like that."

"How is it not like that? You say I don't know what I think, but look at you!"

"It's not because of Strucker."

"Then what?"

She wheeled around, hands off the wall. "Because I don't want all these extra powers! I never wanted these powers! I thought they were going to train us to be Black Widow assassins. I didn't think they were going to do this to us. I'm a freak. And don't try to convince me you're just as bad. You can control your powers. Mine surge when I get emotional, destroy—I'm a weapon. There is no good I can ever do with these powers."

She sent a hex against the wall, a sort of substitution to punching it.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't know," he said as he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll stop bugging you."

She took a deep breath. "We're really stuck like this, aren't we?"

There was a silence.

"There's a secret door right there, isn't there?" Pietro asked.

"Yeah."

She wheeled around, hands off the wall. "Because I don't _want_ all these extra powers! I _never_ wanted these powers! I thought they were going to train us to be Black Widow assassins. I didn't think they were going to do _this_ to us. I'm a freak. And don't try to convince me you're just as bad. You can control your powers. Mine surge when I get emotional, destroy—I'm a weapon. There is no good I can ever do with these powers."

She sent a hex against the wall, a sort of substitution to punching it.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't know," he said as he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll stop bugging you."

She took a deep breath. "We're really stuck like this, aren't we?"

"Could've been worse."

She shook her head.

There was a silence.

"There's a secret door right there, isn't there?" Pietro asked.

"Yeah."

Pietro watched as Wanda put pressure from her fingertips on the door and it opened. Secret door indeed.

The hallway led immediately to a long set of stairs going down into the facility. As a child, Pietro had always wanted to be an adventurer like Indiana Jones, and he wondered if this would be considered his first real expedition. Hydra was such a weird place, and Pietro really had no idea what they were even about. It was one of those things he kept meaning to Google but never got around to.

The basement facility seemed to have a similar layout to the upper floors—a main warehouse sort of room with a bunch of connecting rooms off of it. Bad lighting, but it still wasn't necessarily so dark that they couldn't see.

And dammit, this was where the crazy shit was, apparently.

He looked up and they had what looked like a giant robot whale. Pietro vaguely recognized it, but he didn't need to know how otherworldly it was. The whole room was covered in tables displaying different strange objects—weapons, machines, articles of clothing.

"All of this is from the Battle of New York," Wanda said as she took her hand off an object. "From that god…"

"Why do you think Hydra keeps all this stuff down here? Is all of it broken or something?"

"I don't know." She moved to the whale robot thing. "Lift me up."

Pietro got Wanda as far as sitting on his shoulders, but she wasn't tall enough.

Of course, her apparent natural solution is to use her hexes as little booster rockets so she could plain stand on his shoulders to reach.

"Can I assume if you fall you can catch yourself?" Pietro mumbled.

Pietro could only assume what Wanda was doing when she gasped.

"What?" Pietro called up.

"This isn't a spaceship. It's a corpse. This thing was…alive…"

Pietro glanced at its underbelly, how the thing stretched seemingly the whole giant ass room. "Please tell me the spirit isn't still with us."

Wanda crouched down and vaulted off him by his shoulders. Not without causing him pain. "No. It was all projections, old memories from the body itself." She sighed. "This is unbelievable."

Pietro scanned the room, spotted the sceptre. "Does it really surprise you?"

"I just…what is Hydra, that it can get artifacts like this."

"Dunno. Wanna see what's in the other rooms?"

They moved into a room in the far corner.

Nothing all that interesting. A lot of papers.

Next room.

This room wasn't much better. There were a few drawers, but the one with the lock on it got Pietro's attention.

"Can you break that?" he asked his sister.

She broke the lock.

He wondered where Strucker kept all those notes he kept taking on Wanda and him. He supposed they'd be digital. Would he keep paper copies as well?

The drawer was filled to the brim with…

…with…with Nazi memorabilia.

What?

Pietro sifted through the drawer, and there it all was. Papers stamped with swastikas, the armbands. Pietro picked one out, stretched the fabric out. It made his blood go cold, and part of him didn't think he could even stomach putting it on.

"Wanda, have you ever looked up Hydra before?" he muttered.

She peered over at the armband. Frowned.

"Something tells me we don't need to."

Should they have mentioned that they were Jewish?

"Is this real?"

Wanda nodded. "The wear is old enough."

Were they working for fucking Nazis? Neo Nazis?

Pietro pawed through the drawer some more, only to find a rusty old key.

And, incidentally, there was a door right a lock at the edge of the room. Pietro put the armband back, closed the drawer, and moved toward the door. Slid the key in, unlocked it.

Another staircase. Pitch black.

Wanda used a hex as a sort of lantern, and down they went.

"You don't really think that Strucker's a Nazi, do you?" Wanda asked.

"What do you think?"

"I don't know."

She knew. She could say nothing, and he'd know by the way she settled her hand on her stomach. He put his arm around her waist.

The secret secret staircase led them to a single room. Dusty, with enough dirt to hear the crunching underneath their feet. There was a light switch, though. Pietro toggled on the lights while Wanda walked around. There was…drawers again. And a little drawer/door thing in the wall.

Wanda went for the normal looking drawers, and Pietro went for the little door thing.

It was stuck. Old shit.

"Pietro…"

Pietro took another hand onto the handlebar. Damn thing wasn't going to hold him back.

"Pietro…"

He gave the door a good yank, and it came open with a shriek.

"What?" Pietro said.

The door was a drawer, as it turned out. Deep, covered in a thick pile of white powder. Pietro had a strange feeling it wasn't cocaine. He dipped his fingertips in it.

"These drawers are filled with clothing," Wanda said.

Pietro turned around and found Wanda carrying a pair of sneakers, a hoodie, an arm full of jewelry.

"Whose stuff is that?"

Wanda was ghostly pale.

She shook her head, lips quivering but not saying a word.

He lifted the powder to his nose and sniffed. It didn't…didn't smell like anything Pietro recognized.

"Wanda, talk to me," Pietro said, trying to keep his voice even.

Pietro sifted through the powder again, until his fingers hit something smooth, solid.

He pulled it out, thumb and index finger.

It was a tooth.

A human tooth.

He threw the tooth back into the drawer and rubbed the powder as best off his body as he could. When he looked to Wanda, she was crying.

 _We're working for fucking Nazis._

She didn't have to say a word.


	12. Arise

Wanda

 _We're working for fucking Nazis_. Somehow, in that moment, Wanda could only process it through Pietro's thoughts. She couldn't bring herself to swallow it, think it herself, say it out loud.

She looked down at the effects she'd collected. God, she could even recognize Anna's necklace, the little gold heart on the end of a long silver chain. She knew it wasn't some Nazi hoarding, she knew whose clothing this was, but all she could think about were those documentaries her father used to turn on and fall asleep to. She and Pietro had snuck in to watch. She knew the images. The acres big mass graves, the truckloads of shoes and suitcases that could cover acres of their own. Lifeless, unused, haunted.

Holding the clothing, being so deep in the belly of the beast, Wanda could suddenly sense all the ghosts down here. They weren't sentient, not even the way the dog had been. They were wisps of terror and confusion and panic. She knew their names better than they did.

Hydra hadn't just killed all the volunteers; they hadn't returned their bodies to their families, had them incinerated one by one and their ash left in the tray.

Wanda couldn't even say she felt the nausea that seemed proper for the moment. She just felt…numb. Shocked, unsure. Terrified.

"What are we going to do?" Wanda whispered.

Pietro shut the drawer of ash and moved to her, helped her put away the articles of clothing she'd pulled out.

"What we always said we'd do. We'll leave," he said.

"Don't you think they'll wonder why we're suddenly leaving the program?"

"What does it matter?"

"Because," she swallowed, "we don't know how big this organization is. What if they come after us? Strucker may like us right now, but if we run away, and he catches us…"

"Wanda, I have super speed and you can control people. What makes you think we can get caught?"

She blinked back frustrated tears. "I don't know my powers like you do. I don't…"

He pulled her into a hug. "You do. I do. We'll get out." He exhaled. "But maybe you're right. We can be pragmatic about this. At least get out of here without anyone noticing. Sleep on it."

They worked for monsters.

Pietro pulled away, and they began the walk back to the safe zone. She grabbed for his hand—it seemed like the first time in so long—but it felt damn good. She didn't imagine letting him go any time soon.

"Do you think they're still Nazis?" Pietro asked.

The word put a pit in her stomach. God, was this real? "It's a bit outdated, don't you think?"

"Dunno. People still commit genocides."

"I mean I don't think they're planning on rounding up the Jews and gay people and Roma again. I don't…see the same threat."

"Then what? Hydra isn't really in any documentaries I've seen. What did they do for the Nazis?"

Wanda looked around as they entered the room with the alien corpse again. "Science. Like those horrible experiments from World War II."

Pietro clicked his tongue. "Imagine what these freaks have hidden in their closets."

"I'd rather not."

They continued walking. Wanda couldn't help it. Pietro leading, she fixed her gaze on that alien's corpse just once more. _That thing came from another dimension_. It had sure taken long enough, but there Wanda was, fully accepting that _there were different worlds_.

And there were people like Hydra who were trying to control those worlds. Whose version of control was a 1% successful transplant of alien power into human bodies. With future effects she'd never know about. For all she knew, these powers would kill her decades early, deform her children, or worse—give them this burden. She'd lived twenty-two years without powers; she couldn't imagine living all of them like this.

 _Opened doors._

Wanda shot out of her trance. Tightened her grip on Pietro, looked up.

There was Daniel.

All three of them were still in a restricted zone.

"H-How did you two get in here?" Daniel asked.

There was no way Daniel wouldn't tell Strucker. He'd tell Strucker, and he'd punish them. Try to separate them, torture them—

Pietro let go of Wanda's hand.

She waited for him to run up to Daniel, but Pietro wasn't moving.

She saw Pietro look at her through her peripheral vision.

A lump grew in her throat as she moved forward.

 _I'm sorry_ , she thought as she got within arm's length of Daniel.

"Wanda, what're you—?"

Wanda felt the glow in her eyes, felt the heat as the hex left her fingertips.

It slipped so effortlessly into his mind, the perfect universal key.

She thought about Daniel turning around and returning to an innocuous duty. She thought about him forgetting everything he had just seen.

She looked up just long enough to see the red leave his eyes.

He walked away.

Wanda returned to Pietro, and the two of them stayed silent, even after Daniel left.

"Have you ever done that before?" Pietro asked.

Wanda shook her head.

He took her hand, and they went back to the everyman access levels. Up to their room. Shut the door.

"You didn't take anything, right?" Wanda asked her brother.

"What am I gonna take? A swastika armband souvenir?"

"Just making sure."

There was a long pause.

"Just holler when you're ready to talk," Pietro said.

Wanda didn't holler all night.

#

 _You know we're gonna have to talk about this eventually._

Wanda rolled over, facing away from Pietro.

"Honestly, Wanda, why aren't we talking about this?" Pietro said.

"It's not that simple. I just…I don't know if now is the right time to leave."

"What is?"

"I don't know."

"What is holding you back? Jesus, are you having visions, what is it? What do you think I can't comprehend?" Pietro physically got out of bed to get on his knees and talk to her face to face. "Wanda."

She wished he could read minds too. Why should she be the one who had to articulate everything that didn't want to be articulated?

"It's not the right time yet. I just…I feel it."

"That makes no sense."

She rolled over again.

She wanted to tell him why. She truly did. But what came out was, "Maybe we should make sure they're actually Nazis."

Pietro tossed his hands up, gave him the _the fuck_ look. Then, "Great idea, Wanda. Let's just sing Nazi anthems until someone gives us a Heil Hitler. Oh, lucky for us, I think I actually know a Nazi anthem already." Pietro straightened up, soldier straight. " _The sun on the meadow is summery warm./The stag in the forest runs free./But gather together to greet the storm./Tomorrow belongs to me._ "

He was just goading her. She wouldn't give in. "That's not even a real Nazi song, dumbass."

" _The branch of the linden is leafy and green, the Rhine gives its gold to the sea./But somewhere a glory awaits unseen. Tomorrow belongs to me._ Fraulein Maximoff, sing with me."

He put his right hand to his forehead, an American salute. "Why do you even know all the words?" Wanda muttered.

" _The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes, the blossom embraces the bee. But soon, says a whisper, 'arise, arise.' Tomorrow belongs to me_." He put his right hand into the Nazi salute, seemingly deliriously angry at this point.

"Shut up," Wanda hissed.

He cupped his left ear. " _Oh, Fatherland, Fatherland, show us your sign your children have waited to see._ " He started goose stepping. " _The morning will come when the world is mine. Tomorrow belongs to—_ "

It was all right there, like he'd transported them back. The clapping boots on dirt, the skeletons, the marches, the millions of empty shoes, the gurneys, the pain, God, the pain—

"STOP IT!" she said. She hadn't even realized how heavy she was breathing, how her throat was nearly closed. "Just stop it! I'm terrified. That's why I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back out on the streets and risk that Strucker will come after us. I saw all I needed to know down there. These people were made of monsters and they've stayed that way. I can't—I don't know if I can protect you. I can't risk that—I don't…It's not like I want to work with these savages. I know, okay? I know. How far can you really run? We have no idea how our powers function outside of this place. We have no idea if we'll survive. Not yet. Just not yet…"

For a long time, they just stood there and stared.

Finally, Pietro said, "I'm not staying here forever."

"I don't want to either."

"Wanda, we have to do something. I know it's terrifying. But we can't just let them turn us into one of them. I'd rather risk dying than become a mindless killing machine. I know you think the same thing."

Wanda put her face in her hands, sunk onto the bed. "How did we get so far into this?"

Pietro took a seat beside her, embraced her. "We couldn't have known. But come on, we make this right. Let's just throw them off. We can leave tomorrow." He paused. "Wanda?"

"What?"

"You know what would buy us some time…"

She exhaled. "If I clouded their minds a bit?"

"Would you do that? You did such a great job with Daniel. It wouldn't hurt them and it'd help us." He paused. "If you don't feel comfortable…"

"No, no, it's," she paused, "it's a good idea. I just don't know how well I could do it."

"Well, we'll play it by ear."

"What time tomorrow?"

"Evening."

 _Morning._

A shiver ran down Wanda's spine, even if they'd never proven if Strucker listened to them.

Morning. Less than twelve hours from then, they'd be gone, free to explore the outside world for the first time in months.

For the first time ever since gaining their powers.

How would they function without Hydra as a crutch? Could they? What were they even going to do without money? She supposed it'd be easy for Pietro to steal, but she hated him stealing.

"What're you thinking about?" Pietro asked.

"How we're broke."

Pietro smirked. "You know they have a safe on the top floor, farthest room on the left. Labeled supply closet. Safe. It's a lock like the ones in school. I cracked it a few weeks ago."

Her little rascal.

"Grab some on the way out?" Wanda suggested.

Pietro smiled. "Now we're on the same page." He paused. "So, this is probably going to be our last night in complete luxury."

She resisted laughing. "What do you wanna do?"

"Honestly, what do _you_ want to do? I always get too excited and decide for us."

She traced lines on his hand. "That last hormone shot will still last at least two months. Sex won't be anything we have to cut back on. But, romance…"

"Whatever you want."

"A bath?"

He smiled. "Sounds kinda nice."

It took some effort—a lot of effort, really—but Wanda did her best to push out any thoughts about the Nazi paraphernalia and the human ashes and manipulating Daniel's mind. She had to keep telling herself that she and Pietro were doing the right thing, that everything would be okay. That this was going to work.

Pietro drew the bath steaming hot. They didn't have any rose pedals, but they had soap, so it was a fine enough alternative. She found herself taking him in as he stepped in. Pietro had always been fit, but those few months at the gym had turned Pietro into something else entirely—eight pack, sharply defined arm muscle, toned chest, muscles that rippled across his back as he moved. It was like looking at a god.

She couldn't stare long before her legs were guiding her toward him. The water was hot, shocking, even, but it felt amazing. She sunk right in, let the soap soften her skin and warm her up. Pietro pulled her into him, so she was lying on his lap. She settled her head against his shoulder.

"Can you promise me something?" Wanda whispered.

"Yeah, of course."

"When people see us, and either revile us or fall in love with us, don't forget about what we used to be."

He smiled. "How could I forget the first twenty-two years of spending time with the woman I love?"

"You don't think…our love has changed, right?"

He took her hand. "If anything, I think it's grown stronger. You keep my mind slowed down, I keep you grounded. I don't trust anyone else to do that for me, and I can't imagine you feel different."

She sighed. "I just…I need this, this constant, this us. Everything else is so volatile, fragile. I just want to know that one thing will stay the same, always."

He kissed her. "I will always love you. Promise."

Pietro clearly wanted to keep kissing, but Wanda pulled away. "Do you think Mama and Papa would be proud of us or disgusted?"

"In regards to what?"

"The choices we've made. Us. Strucker."

"With Strucker, it wasn't our best decision, but we made it and we can make some good out of it. As for us," Pietro moved a piece of hair out of her face, "they can punish us when we get to heaven. Nothing they can do from down here."

"How are you always so self-assured?"

"Well, we have to have a smart twin and dumb one…"

They sat in silence for a while.

"Hey Wanda?"

"Yeah?"

There was practically not an inch of skin that wasn't touching, the two of them pruned, the water warm not hot, but neither of them willing to get out.

"If you can see the dead…have you ever thought about looking for our parents?"

Wanda bit her lip. "Is it bad to say I haven't?"

She felt Pietro's twinge of pain, but he didn't show it. "Can I ask why?"

"I don't know. I guess I…I've always felt like I didn't have to miss them as hard because you took over the role of protector and nurturer for me. Of course I miss them and what they gave to my life, but I've never really felt like I didn't have their love. I don't know what trying to find their souls would do." She turned to look at him. "Does that make sense?"

"I guess it does. It's just hard for me to imagine not constantly thinking about them, thinking about what we lost…"

She squeezed his hand. "I don't know. I feel like I stopped thinking like that because I told myself that I'd never let it happen again. I'd never lose you, for instance. Or any children we ever had, people like that. It helps." She smiled. "You won't leave me, right 'tro?"

He smiled back. "What would I ever do without you?"

They kissed, and she was happy to let it progress wherever it could go.

#

The two of them decided they'd wait until after breakfast. More pragmatic, and it was a less likely time to escape as opposed to first thing in the morning.

No one really spoke that morning. Daniel certainly didn't remember what Wanda had done to him, and she couldn't help but feel immense relief from the prospect. Her night with Pietro had left her a little tired but overwhelmingly relaxed, and she needed to start somewhere good considering how stressful she knew the day would be.

She tried to take everything in as she and Pietro headed up to their room for one last time, but her brain wasn't having it. She could usually block out thoughts pretty easily, but something kept buzzing in the back of her mind.

It was Dr. List who approached them first.

"Come with me," he said.

Pietro didn't move. "Why?"

Dr. List…God, did Dr. List look nervous? The German scientist, the apparently member of a former/maybe still Nazi organization? "The Avengers have infiltrated the premises."

Wanda didn't even have to exchange a look with Pietro. She didn't even really have to read his mind.

 _Quick detour_.

His thoughts, not hers. Hers were more, _destiny._


	13. A Change of Plans

Pietro

The alarm went off the moment List brought him and Wanda into the room of convening. There, it was like Hydra was having a party. A party with guns and Strucker as the guest of honor. Pietro was sure Strucker was saying something important, but Pietro only caught bits and pieces. Phrases like "circus freaks" to describe the Avengers and something about "no surrender."

Wanda's hand bumped up against his, and he took it, caressing her palm before gripping hard. He wasn't even the mind reader, yet sometimes he swore they shared that power.

 _If a couple over-juiced blond guys and a billionaire in a metal suit are circus freaks, what does Strucker think we are?_ Pietro thought to Wanda.

"Hulk?" Wanda whispered as the two of them took a few steps away from everyone else.

"Either way, good thing we're getting out of here," Pietro said in Sokovian. "We may even have to thank these assholes."

Wanda leaned in. "Do we still want him?"

"We could do both."

They both glanced out at Strucker and List. They just barely managed to avoid making eye contact with them.

"Strucker wants to keep us in, but List wants to try us out," Wanda said.

"Let's give List the good feelings today."

Wanda squeezed his hand. "Be careful, okay? Just find Stark, tell me once he gets in. These guys are trained killers."

Pietro kissed her quick and gave her hand one last squeeze. "We're the last thing those idiots will ever see coming. You be careful too, though, alright?"

Wanda nodded, padded out of the control room, and Pietro sped off.

God, the first rush of cold air knowing he never had to return to this fucking facility felt _amazing._ Pietro could've screamed in happiness, like those wilderness men in the movies from the '80s movies. If only he could move so fast no one could see him. He'd only managed to hit that speed once or twice with Strucker, but that, _that_ would freak these assholes out.

The blur would work.

Strucker hadn't been huge with battle strategy, so Pietro had to really wing this. What would hurt these guys that he could do now? He'd found Stark, his red and gold suit zipping by over his head. Nothing Pietro could do from down there.

Strucker's men were doing their best, but they left a gun unoccupied. He could only be a surprise before they were barking to each other about a guy carrying a bigger stick than the soldiers. Their green monster was not optimal. Captain America didn't seem that great, but he should wait as well. God, who had Strucker said was the Avengers' weak link? Someone normal. Someone—

Who the fuck was the guy with the _bow and arrows_?

God, Pietro didn't even _know_ who that guy was. Per- _fect_!

Take that guy off, and as most compassionate human beings did, the other Avengers would convene to help him. Keep the numbers off Stark.

But, before he actually got to shooting the guy…

Pietro ran past him, blur speed. The guy stopped shooting arrows, looked around for Pietro. Looked the way a well seasoned spy looked. He ran past Bow and Arrows again, and the guy's arrow missed by miles.

Careful to not mangle the guy's legs, Pietro ran up to Bow and Arrows and tripped him. A little harder than he'd been doing to Daniel for weeks now.

The guy was middle aged, at least thirties, probably forties, and seemed like a retired athlete still insisting he was young enough to run with the whippersnappers. He looked utterly shocked, haunted even.

Pietro smirked. "You didn't see that coming?"

He ran over to the gun, readjusted, and shot Bow and Arrows. Sacrifice for the greater good.

God, with real people, it was like squishing ants. It felt like such a cumulating moment, like that lion in the cage from way back when he first got his powers was finally released. He was impenetrable, the street rat who'd climbed far above the people who'd scoffed at them. Let them see him now. Let them fight him now.

Pietro stopped to catch his breath, looked up to see where Stark was. He couldn't see him; the asshole had probably already gotten in. Good for him. Pietro would be joining Wanda in a second.

He glanced around the area. He could probably cause a little more ruckus before killing Stark and getting the hell out of this place forever.

He settled for knocking Captain America to his ass as he ran back to the facility to find Wanda.

#

Wanda

For the first time since receiving her powers, Wanda was at ease. She could feel the currents of this battle. She knew who was going to win, and it wasn't Strucker. Then again, it wouldn't the Avengers either. If she could help it, both sides to this horrible coin would leave bruised, carrying their dead. Frankenstein's monsters didn't care who got hurt.

She could feel them all, hear all their thoughts. The meticulous strategy and focus of Captain America and Thor, the confusion of Hawkeye as he lay in the dirt after Pietro shot him, the scatterbrained thoughts of Stark as he conversed with his robot butler, the unfiltered rage of the Hulk, the dribbling of affection Black Widow felt for Hulk buried among the strict thoughts of an assassin. Pietro's buzzing _gonnakillgonnakillI'mfree_ as he zipped around.

She felt emotional, sitting in this wave of calm and omnipotence. She flashed back to the scared little girl who'd sat dying in that cold room, the girl who had tried killing herself by bashing her head against a wall to stop the voices. Pietro was running around fueled by vengeance and a sense to prove himself, and maybe it was twin ESP, maybe the empathetic connection she felt to him, but she suddenly felt a need to find Strucker. Surely the Avengers wanted him, but she needed him right then. She needed him to know what he created before they took him. Before he died. Whichever came first.

Strucker was a monster. There was no reason to pretend he wasn't anymore. He'd destroyed her brother, destroyed her. She knew, deep down, things could never be the same between her and Pietro, between them and the world. And he could spend a jail sentence, a lifetime, never bothering to think about it. She couldn't stand the thought.

As her eyes began to glow red, she listened to Strucker's thoughts. He was scurrying around like the rat he was, coming up with plan after plan of getting out of this situation. He was thinking about Hydra, about S.H.I.E.L.D., faces flashing quick through his mind. Everything sat under the word, "surrender." It hurt him to think it; Wanda could redirect the pain. He flashed images of that little boy from the fear he'd shown her. It finally occurred to her that this may be Strucker's son. Perhaps it should've made Wanda pause for thought.

It didn't.

The rage bubbled in her gut, and for the first time in so long, she could _feel_ the hex energy spark with it. She walked without thinking, doors to corridors. She just might kill Strucker before she and Pietro killed Stark.

The fire crackled, and something started to die.

She was a single door from Strucker when she heard him. Those focused thoughts of Captain America. He grabbed Strucker, the two spoke.

Strucker didn't fight. It seemed so god damn pathetic.

Captain America knocked the guy out with one hit. She saw Strucker's monocle fall from his eye from Captain America's thoughts.

The rage blew back up.

What did this asshole think he had that made him take that moment from her? She couldn't just wait for him to wake back up to talk to him. She'd never see Strucker again, never have this nightmare resolved.

She burst into the room. Captain America snapped his attention to her, but didn't seem to want to fight. He watched her, expression perplexed. The words she caught in his thoughts were _little girl_.

 _Little Girl._

Fine. Let Uncle Sam think that.

He took a step forward, as if approaching a small animal. Wanda shot him with a hex, knocked him down the stairs he'd left Strucker.

 _Stark. You're here for Stark. Go find him._

She backed out of the room, before the urge to do something to every Avenger, every freak who'd contributed to her horrible life.

Wanda had almost forgotten that Strucker had kept the scepter in that awful basement. It gave her a bit of a jump when Stark just found the "secret" door and stepped in, still chatting to his robot butler.

She kept her distance. If she'd figured one thing out about how a witch fought, she was best served from a distance, where she could pick the best attack. So unlike her brother. She supposed that served them well.

She followed like a phantom, slowly let the scarlet sink into her bloodstream. She felt every prick of it, its warmth, the power it brought with it. To think she'd been so scared to use her powers. What a silly notion. Why not embrace the monster they'd created? It was what the Avengers were built on. It would be how they were destroyed.

Stark stopped in front of the scepter, eyes on it. Stark was so underwhelming in real life. A bit short, wearing a faded tee shirt under that Iron Man suit. How was it possible that this guy had destroyed her and Pietro's entire lives?

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she knew they were glowing red. Part of her wanted him to turn around and see her. Fear her right then.

Either way, though, he'd be terrified in a few seconds.

 _What do you fear, Mr. Stark?_

She hexed him, and was pulled right into his vision with him.

He saw destruction, death, rot. Every one of his super-freaks was dead, down to the female assassin and the twitching body of the Hulk. Captain America's mighty shield was split in half. Then came the words, "You could've saved us."

Pietro tapped her shoulder, made sure she knew that he was behind her. He inched forward, ready to take that first step toward Stark. She knew his every move, how he planned to do it the old fashioned way, choke Stark to death before he realized half of where he was. Pietro sure loved those American movies, but he had no interest in reenacting one with Tony Stark.

And, suddenly, it all made sense.

Wanda held out a hand, kept Pietro back.

They had to let Tony Stark go. Sacrifice one for many.

Pietro shot a glance at her, expressed all the confusion he needed.

Stark picked up the scepter.

"We're just gonna let him take it?" Pietro whispered to her.

 _Yes, Pietro. We're just gonna let him take it._

 _We're just gonna let him let his fears tear him to bits, until he destroys his entire team in one fell swoop._

She grinned, wide and giddy and maybe a little mischievous.

Once Stark had walked right past them, Wanda jumped on Pietro's back.

"We just need to wait a little longer," Wanda whispered to her brother as he grabbed her legs.

He didn't say anything, didn't even betray a thought to her. Ran a little faster than usual to escape.

It felt so inconsequential, this leave.

If only Pietro knew.

Luckily for him, Wanda suspected it'd be quick.


	14. All or Nothing

Pietro

Pietro knew he was overreacting.

"And this," Pietro said, pulling out some shiny dress he'd stolen from a department store in Sokovia, "is not for your brother."

Let Wanda feel it too. His frustration, his— _you're being a fucking idiot—_ she had no right. That was their plan. It had been their goal for over ten years! Kill Stark. Avenge their parents. They'd rocked themselves to sleep for years with that goal. It was the only reason they'd joined Strucker's experiments.

 _Just wait. Just wait._ Just wait just wait just _wait_!

"Oh no, this is too much," the chick—Zhrinka?—said, blushing.

"I insist," Pietro said.

Wanda walked by, right on time.

"Is every girl in Sokovia getting a dress from Paris? At least Gertie's looked warm," Wanda said.

She sounded collected, but she was pissed. Good.

Pietro feigned discomfort at being "discovered." Ran up to Wanda, got in step. Same pace, same emotion. The perfect twins. He said something stupid about her wanting a dress too, being jealous, but she didn't take the bait. He had the strange feeling she wouldn't take the bait for the rest of her stone-serious life.

"If you keep stealing, you're going to get shot," Wanda huffed as they walked to God knows where. He supposed they'd have to find a house to squat at, just like the old days. Ugh, he could just about puke he was so mad.

He scoffed, kept going. Even if he knew what she was doing. He'd deflected his anger, so she was going to do the same. Since when did she care about stealing? There was more chance he'd have died during the twelve years they were on the streets than now.

"I mean it. Sure, with speed, nothing can touch you, but standing still—"

Was she really lecturing him about _standing still_? He managed to dull his blade before taking a swipe at her.

"You think I want to be?" he asked. "You said 'wait.' I'm waiting. I don't know for what. We had Stark _helpless_. All these years and you—"

The Zhrinka girl came running up close to them reprimanding her kid brother for running off. It caught Wanda's attention, so he supposed that meant that lecture was over. He'd been at the church, which basically meant Zhrinka was possibly the worst babysitter on the face of the earth. Then, all of the sudden, the kid brother was looking right at him and Wanda.

"The man said to come to the church," he said.

"What man?" Wanda asked.

The boy hesitated, as if he was trying to explain a dream. "The…iron man."

The fuck?

He looked to Wanda, who thankfully looked as bewildered as he was.

The iron man? Like…Iron Man? Tony Stark? What the hell could Tony Stark want with them after Wanda had scrambled his head and they'd nearly killed him? Even if he didn't know it was them doing that, surely he could figure out that he and Wanda weren't being friendly to them during their little battle. Pietro highly doubted Stark wanted to give them their millions of rubles NATO seized from Strucker.

The kid—Costel? Castle?—walked away with Zhrinka, and Pietro wasn't sure if he was still supposed to be mad at Wanda.

He looked to her. "So…is this what you were waiting for?"

Wanda shook her head. "It's been too short a time. It's…not what he showed me. The feeling I got, it wasn't like this at all."

"So what? You want us to ignore this opportunity too?"

Wanda shot him a warning glare, and he was back to pissed. "I didn't say that. I just need to assess the situation more. You wanted me to use my powers, didn't you? Well, I'm using them, and they aren't giving me a green light to go in there and kill Stark."

Pietro shook his head. "Why would he want to meet with us?"

Wanda bit her inner cheek. "Maybe he wants to recruit us?"

Always the optimist. "I may or may not have killed one of their team members. I don't think he wants us to join the family."

Wanda sighed. "How long do you think he'll stay there?"

"There isn't much to look at in that church."

He watched second-by-second as Wanda's resolve broke down.

"This doesn't feel right to me…" Wanda finally said.

"It's the only thing we've wanted for decades."

"But what if you're right and it is a trap?"

Sometimes he swore Wanda could read thoughts he hadn't even had yet.

Pietro offered her a smile. "What's one guy in a metal suit compared to a witch and a speedster?"

She sighed. "Fine, but whatever happens, when this is over, can we please cash Boris in on that favor, get some pirozhki, find a semi-decent squat and pretend none of this ever happened."

Pietro put his arm around her. "Okay, but if we do that, we're sacking Stark's corpse."

They got in a few minutes of silence.

"Oh, and once we're alone again, I'm gonna beat the living shit out of you for that dress stunt," Wanda added.

Nothing else.

Pietro grinned.

#

Pietro had never liked the church. All it ever reminded him of was the fact that some asshole had decided to drop a few extra shells on the synagogue on their path of destruction, and that this was supposed to be some beacon of hope, but even this looked like a gutted corpse. He and Wanda wove through the jagged metal fences and debris to reach the inside of the church. Or, whatever was left.

Pietro started out in front, a few steps ahead of Wanda, protective. But, he watched her, he saw her brow furrow the closer they got. And then, she was walking in front of him.

"You're wondering why you can't see inside my head."

A cloaked figure sat in the middle of the church's remains, big. His voice was deeper, richer than Stark's had been from the interview clips Pietro had seen. Was this Stark? It sure…didn't seem like Stark.

"Sometimes it's hard," Wanda said, her voice dripping in…ease? Contempt? "but eventually every man shows himself."

"Oh, I'm sure they do."

The figure got to his feet, letting the crimson cloak slide off. And then, Pietro swore he took a wrong couple rights and ended up in the Twilight Zone. Because there was no man standing in front of them. No, there was a robot. A several meter tall robot with a human's voice and intelligence, like a demented metal mascot costume.

He took a step toward Wanda, edgier the closer the robot came to Wanda. He asked her about letting Stark take the scepter, and God, Wanda stood her ground. He could see her hands shaking, but she looked up at him and conversed.

"Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war. Invaders create avengers. People create…smaller people? Uhh, children. I lost the word there!" What. The. Fuck? Pietro looked to his sister for feedback, but she was staring dumbstruck at this thing. "Children, designed to supplant them, to help them…end."

Philosopher fucking robot with a language processing problem. This was too much. This was too fucking much.

"Is that why you've come? To end the Avengers?" Wanda asked as if they were just having a casual philosophical debate.

"I've come to save the world…" The robot hesitated. "And uh, yeah."

Pietro had no idea what happened next. Somehow they got to talking with this robot about helping him create a better world and end the Avengers, and Wanda seemed convinced it was a good idea. They talked to Ultron—he had a name, apparently—about their parents. He said he understood why they'd been the only ones who survived. He showed them how he had taken Strucker's base, their home for what, a year?—and turned it into a robot factory.

And, by the end of it, Pietro was convinced. As much as Wanda had been.

They were going to help Ultron destroy the Avengers. He didn't know how it made sense, when it started making sense, but it was like Strucker had implanted something in his brain that made this fight seem so inevitable. He'd gained, lost, gained, lost and gained the lust to kill Tony Stark, and with Ultron's instructions to meet back at dawn, it all seemed so…possible.

He felt like he was walking out of a dream as he and Wanda left the facility.

He pulled out the little scrap change he'd saved from Strucker and bought them the pirozhki she wanted and a very cheap hotel room to go with them.

They ate in relative silence. He wasn't even really thinking much, the first real lull in conversation they'd had since gaining their powers. He didn't even know how to begin approaching the subject. They'd, what, just joined forces with a robot? This shouldn't seem weird considering they had superpowers and a giant green monster existed on the planet, but it still seemed so out there. Maybe a part of him was a little apprehensive to just jump into this craziness.

He glanced at Wanda and her barely picked at food. Or maybe he was just getting those vibes off her.

"What's on your mind?" Pietro asked.

"This…feels right to you, right?"

"Right enough. I don't see anything better we can be doing."

She leaned against his shoulder. "Why do I still feel so anxious about it then?"

He smiled. "If you recall, your defining phrase used to be, 'if you don't stop worrying, you're gonna get an ulcer,' so I don't think this is anything that new."

"It feels…deeper than that, though. Something just—the thought of you even just running out there with those dresses made me sick to my stomach. I know it shouldn't. I know you're faster than that, so why I am so on edge about us out here?"

He turned to face her, took her hands. "Here're the facts: neither of got immortality with this scepter deal. Any time out here we could die. But, you know what, I'm not worried. And it's not because I think I'm immune. It's because I know that there is no force on this earth that is going to tear us apart. I don't fear dying if I do it with you."

She looked down. "I don't either."

She looked up and they made eye contact. Looking at those eyes, that beautiful face with her little furrow in her brow, the tugging frown, the way she looked up to him with so much weight, so much trust and adoration, _God_ , he _loved_ her. Loved her more in this moment, seeing that vulnerable, beautiful girl he'd grown up next to.

He'd almost forgotten.

He reached into his pocket. "You know I never meant anything by those dresses, and yes, it was a dick move, but I didn't forget you."

"I don't want a dress."

"I didn't get you a dress."

He pulled out a silver chain with Star of David charm hanging off the end. Held it out for her inspection.

"Better than a dress, yeah?" Pietro prodded.

Wanda took the necklace gingerly, bit her inner cheek like she was trying to hold back tears. "Pietro, this is beautiful…"

He shrugged. "I thought it'd mean more than some stupid dress. I know you always wanted one, and I kinda just took the opportunity." She slid it on. The chain was long, so the charm disappeared into her cleavage. He smiled as she caught him staring. "You gonna fish that out?"

She pulled it out. "I don't know. I've never been flashy about it. I love this, I do, but I kinda like no one but us knowing about it." She let it fall back into her cleavage. She smiled. "And stop that! It's closer to my heart, you pervert."

Wanda laid back, head against the pillows. He did the same.

"So you promise, all or nothing?" she whispered.

He pulled her closer into him, so their chests pressed against each other, hearts slowly beating to synch, and he could feel the cold of the necklace.

"All or nothing," he repeated.


	15. Co-Dependent

Wanda

Winter 2010

They heard the news on a swift walk through the cold. It was that time of year when Wanda and Pietro would count the seconds they were outside, count their fingers and toes once they made it into some kind of shelter. They really only understood Russian culture through the bits that had seeped through being former Soviet Union territory, but the phrase they kept using, that Wanda recognized, was "Russian winter."

They said it was going to break records.

Wanda had tried to ignore the sentiment and push it into getting somewhere faster. Their goal was to make it to one of the remaining homeless shelters before the storm came in. That way, if it did last too long, there'd be an abundance of supplies. At least enough to sustain a larger crop of people, and there were always ways to get more food and blankets if needed.

"We don't have time to listen to your pretty boy Igor Reznikov speak," Pietro muttered as he yanked her forward.

She had just wanted to catch the tail end of the news. God, they better get inside a shelter soon. If not for actual survival, for her sanity having to deal with a grumpy, hungry, and impatient brother. She kept in step as best she could, even if the icy streets and Pietro's strides weren't helping.

"How much farther?" Wanda asked.

"A few more blocks."

Wanda panted as they went. She never thought she had asthma or anything, but it was always harder to travel during the winter. Not to mention the fact that her skin stung from the cold, and she didn't have time to figure out if the fluid crusted around her nose was blood or not.

But, there was no way Pietro was going to carry her, so on they went.

Wanda waited four blocks before saying anything. She stopped, and Pietro stopped with her.

"Did we pass it?" she asked, leaning on him to catch her breath.

Pietro wheeled around, as if something would show up on a second pass. "I don't—no, we didn't. It was here. Fuck, where is it?"

Wanda pushed through a bout of lightheadedness to think. The only consolation was her mind was too muddled to go into a full panic yet. Time was running out.

"Is there another shelter nearby?" Wanda asked.

Pietro covered his face with his hands. "No, there isn't."

Wanda looked around. Snow was beginning to fall. "Well, guess we have our options here."

They made their choice quick, picking the nearest house that fulfilled the complicated criterion of being unoccupied. It wasn't all that big, but none of the windows were broken, the living space was fairly insulated, and there was a case of water in the pantry. It was actually a great find.

Pietro lit a fire and they hunkered down for the night. The word record still haunted Wanda's thoughts, but logically, even record storms couldn't last more than a few days at absolute worst. They had a can of soup and a candy bar. They'd rationed out worse, and a day or two hungry wasn't that bad. As long as they didn't freeze to death, it'd be fine.

"What're you thinking, a week?" Wanda asked as she pulled out the soup and candy bar.

Pietro gave her a look. "Two, three days max."

"We're preparing for a week."

Pietro eyed the can. "We could safely store that for one day unless you want to add to our accidental poisoning tally."

"Fine. We'll divide this for six days, the can for one."

She turned the candy bar around in her hand. It was a king sized, but cutting the thing into twelve pieces wasn't going to be that easy, or encouraging. At least they'd have an okay meal one day.

"You want the soup now or later?" Wanda asked.

Pietro sighed. "Let's wait."

Wanda measured out six slices of the bar, cut one, and sliced it in half. At least it had nuts in it.

She offered Pietro a smile as he very clearly wasn't satisfied with what she gave him.

"Pray for two days," she said as she popped her bit of candy into her mouth.

She had the strange feeling she should be savoring it.

#

By day four, it was clear that Pietro was a shit weatherman, but he was taking it in stride.

"You warming up?" Pietro whispered in Wanda's ear as they cuddled together, down to shirts and pants, the other layers wrapping them together like a burrito.

He kissed her neck, up her jawline.

"Actually, I'm kinda hot."

"Beats cold."

He pecked her lips, dipped out, and dipped back tongue all in. Call it lethargy or submission, but she let him right in. She needed his warm mouth right then. She needed him aggressive, using his limited energy on her. Even if they hadn't gone anywhere below the belt, Wanda never stopped thinking about it. She could feel his hard on against her leg. She wondered what it'd be like to just do it right then and there. Would it be worse for their not-freezing-to-death goal if they both got too sweaty? She wondered if she'd even think to worry about that after they did it. With Pietro, the way he made her head swim just kissing, she doubted it.

Pietro pulled away first, suddenly.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

They kicked out of the burrito. Pietro faced the cold, but Wanda took her time to bundle up again. She hadn't heard anything.

Pietro held out his hand. "There it is again. Hear it?"

"Not with you talking," Wanda retorted.

Finally, she heard it. Rustling, the tiny clack of claws on wood floor.

"Rats," Pietro hissed.

Somehow, neither of them needed to say anything. They ran to the kitchen, the countertop where Wanda had placed the candy bar.

It was gone, vanished along with the sight of a rat tail disappearing into a hole in the wall, a rougher sketch of the hole Jerry the mouse lived in from those American _Tom and Jerry_ cartoons. Wanda suddenly felt for Tom the cat.

"Shit!" Pietro said. "Shit, what the—"

"What do we do now?" Wanda asked as it all sunk in.

"There's for sure no other food around here?"

They'd certainly checked a million times. "No."

Pietro sighed. "We'll think of something. Meanwhile, think we can dig into that rat hole? Maybe they have other stolen food."

"In a rats' nest? It'll all be rotten."

"Is it not worth a try? We don't have that many options."

In the end, without the proper tools, they settled for setting a trap outside the hole.

#

Wanda woke up three days later to an aching stomach and the sound of Pietro cheering like a sugar-high child.

"What?" Wanda asked as she rolled over and sat up.

"We've got food for today."

Wanda's eyes lit up. "You found more cans?"

"Better. Something fresh."

He led her right to the rat hole, where a little gray rat lay dead in the trap.

No. No no no no. He was crazy. He wanted them to _eat_ that? Any hunger she'd had two seconds ago dissipated in a vat of nausea and horror.

"You want to _eat_ that?" Wanda said.

Pietro nodded. "It's meat. Hell, I'm sure it's what half the restaurants pass off as chicken anyway. I'll skin it, prepare it—look, I know it's low quality, but what choice do we have? The snow isn't getting any lighter. You could at least pretend to be grateful."

"Grateful? You're asking me to cheer for you butchering something whose face I'm staring at right now. Besides, it's a rat. It's probably diseased. We're worried about just getting normal food poisoning? You're cooking up the plague."

"It's a house mouse, not a sewer rat. It's food, Wanda. You can make up all the excuses you want, but it's food, and you're eating it."

Pietro leaned down and wrenched the mouse out of the trap. Her stomach lurched.

"No. No, that—that's not food. It's like you said, the storm is gonna let up. I'm not even hungry. I'm not resorting to that."

Pietro shook his head. "Fine, play your game, but you're not better than me for turning it down. Talk to me in a few hours."

She settled herself onto another corner of the house while Pietro did his butchering. She did her best to ignore, to disappear into one of the newer paperbacks she'd nicked before the storm. It was her way; she'd been doing it for years.

Only, it had been so long since Wanda had gone this long without eating. She'd lost her willpower, could feel her brain going with it. Hell, it was the first thing to go. She'd read some while back that people could only achieve levels of happiness and awareness in stages, how if one was stuck at the bottom level, without basic necessities, they could never get higher. Apparently, reading was higher than she was. God, Pietro's rat didn't even smell good, but it had her mouth watering.

But she couldn't stop thinking of that poor animal's face. It wasn't the mice's fault that they'd stolen her and Pietro's candy bar. They were just trying to survive like they were. She'd known kids in grade school who'd had pet mice. It was like eating someone's pet, as bad as eating a dog or cat. She couldn't do it. Part of her—God, she couldn't stand it—wanted to do it, though.

She didn't ask for anything, and Pietro didn't offer. It seemed like a game now, which of them could ignore her starving while he ate longer.

He cracked first, later that night, when they couldn't see the snow locking them inside and Wanda was left wondering if anyone could tell how starved they were.

She heard Pietro lie down behind her, in a spooning position but not quite spooning. The soft clatter of a plate sounded somewhere beyond her.

"Hey, you hungry?" Pietro asked.

Her whole body ached, her head pounding; she could barely keep her eyes open. "Yeah."

"I made you some chicken. It's not as seasoned as Mama used to do it," he snickered, "but Mama never seasoned it that well anyway."

He offered her a piece of white meat clenched between two fingers. It had a steady plume of steam emitting off it. Her stomach rumbled at the sight, her mouth suddenly watering so hard it hurt. He nudged the meat into her hand, and she stopped thinking. Forgot all about Pietro's half-assed lie. She shoved the meat into her mouth, let her mind wander. She swore it tasted like chicken, like they were eating one of Mama's dinners.

"Is there more?" she asked.

"Yeah. Mama split a breast between us. I already ate, so you got your whole half."

He handed her another chunk of meat, and she accepted. It tasted better the second time.

He finally handed her the plate, all the meat broken up like Papa used to cut their food as children. She ate greedily, hardly tasting, canceling out everything around her but the pacifying of her aching, empty stomach. Pietro sat back in a daze, muttering about food, about Mama and Papa, about their old home. If he was going to heaven, he hooked her by her shirt. Sitting there, eating the meat she'd forgotten was mouse, she could almost hear the clattering of utensils against plates, hear the cadences of Mama and Papa's voices. Mama had never been a tremendous cook, but she and Pietro had kept so active throughout the day that everything Mama had made had tasted fine. She could remember so vividly how Mama would prepare a chicken dish. She used to love making Chicken Kiev to celebrate—weekends, good grades, Papa getting praised at work. She used to serve it with little gold potatoes she'd slice in half and sprinkle with rosemary. Pan seared vegetables Papa would make them spear with the potatoes so they'd eat them. One time Papa gave them sips of wine, saying they needed to develop a palate early. Neither of them had liked it, and Mama had given them juice to wash it down.

She licked her plate clean, and even with the newfound energy coursing through her, she was still exhausted. Pietro didn't move from where he was, but she flipped over to face him.

"Thanks," she murmured as she nuzzled into him.

He kissed her forehead. " 'welcome." He ran his hand up and down her back. "I'll try to catch more. Nothing like seeing a little life return to you."

She smiled, and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the happy family she used to have, and the happy little family she had now, that she'd build up with the family next to her.

#

They smoked out the mice, and had steady meals that lasted for another four days. Wanda never participated in the butchering, as if Pietro would let her, but as the days passed, as the mice meat tasted worse and worse, she never once declined Pietro's offer. He stopped pretending for her, and she never minded. It didn't taste good, but it was food. Like he said.

Even so, she wished she'd appreciated it, even its bad taste, when it ran out.

Four days passed. As usual for Sokovia, the only thing keeping them in the house was the lack of help. Snow had to be cleared, and no one was quick to fix up the poorest areas. It only made it worse when new blankets of snow would appear on the ground.

Four days was only a day longer than Wanda had gone earlier in their little stay, but it felt eternally longer. She could hardly move, and thinking was far out of the question. She felt drunk, in a strange way. There were thoughts in her head, but they only made half-sense at best. She'd look over at Pietro as he laid on the couch opposite her, staring at the ceiling. One second she'd be thinking that they ought to think of a game plan, and the next she'd be wondering where they were and why they weren't vampires or looking for a radio to play music.

She shook her head. They couldn't drink each other's blood. She hadn't taken enough science to know what blood was made of, but she recalled it wasn't made of anything protein based. Mostly liquid. Either way, there was some other science law that didn't make that option make sense. Energy. Something like it'd take more energy to heal a cut than the blood would give nourishment. They didn't know when they'd be getting out, so they shouldn't injure each other anyway. Hair wouldn't give them anything, nor nails, nor clothing.

She stared at Pietro, gaze floating over his body. She rested on his crotch. Spit couldn't give anything, but what about semen? People always joked that some girls survived on vodka and semen alone as a fad diet. Semen had to have some nutritional value, didn't it? Girls swallowed cum all the time. It wasn't unnatural, not the way blood was.

Her stomach clenched. She'd do almost anything to have something, anything inside her again. She couldn't stand this emptiness.

She crawled over to Pietro. He wasn't asleep, wasn't quite awake, his eyes watching her but barely. She unzipped and unbuttoned his pants, opened it up for easy access. She found herself muttering, "is this okay?" and him muttering, "yeah" back. She pulled his cock out from over his boxers and stuck his head into her mouth. She had no idea why, but she imagined it feeling like a popsicle, but it was far too warm for that. But not quite the same as any sort of phallic shaped meat she'd ever had. More solid, more alive. She knew the rules—no teeth—but she made sure she was gentle. She sucked him down as deep as she could without making herself uncomfortable and ran her tongue along his head. He moaned; she felt his hand land on her head. Neither of them were aware enough to know where his hand should go.

She licked and sucked him until he was as wet as the inside of her mouth. It didn't feel like long, though. Her hunger, that desperation wouldn't leave her. She forgot to enjoy Pietro's reactions, the way he bucked and moaned. She sucked harder, bobbed quicker, until she had that sweet liquid in her mouth.

It wasn't sweet, though, but it was warmer than she expected. Thicker than she expected, though, and God, it all but killed her as she savored it. She swallowed, and she couldn't imagine the best orgasm in the world felt as good as something running down her throat again.

She rested her head on Pietro's thigh as she caught her breath and made sure his cum stayed down.

He was staring at her, and she couldn't read his expression.

And it all came crashing down.

What had she just done? They'd promised exploring was going to be meaningful, loving, two souls connecting, and she'd just done what? Given him a blowjob because she was _hungry_? What was wrong with her? God, this had to be why everyone called their relationship so unholy. She felt filthy, and she feared anything Pietro might say. Would he say she took advantage of him? She didn't. She couldn't bear to think that.

"Wanda, it's okay," Pietro said.

She didn't realize she was crying until he was wiping tears away. "I'm sorry. I was just—I was so hu—and you—it doesn't—"

There was a long pause. "No, Wanda, that's…genius."

"But you—"

"I just don't know how long I can sustain it. But don't…don't worry about it. I want you to be okay. We can try again later." He took her hand. "I'll try to cum faster so you don't have to use so much energy."

#

It was how they spent until the end of the second week—giving each other oral and manual sex with intent to consume each other's sexual fluids. It wasn't hot, it wasn't arousing, it wasn't even that fun. But, it wasn't devoid of love. That much Wanda knew. She knew that one day, if they ever got out of this, sexual pleasure wouldn't be accompanied by too much tongue or forced sexual fantasies to make the acts last the least amount of time possible. Sometimes, they'd suggest it, that they really _do it_ this time, with the dirty talk and slowness and savoring every sigh and buck, but neither of them had enough energy to even attempt it.

She knew they were dying. No amount of orgasms could take that away. No one could survive on sexual fluids for as long as they were. There was no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. It didn't matter if they figured out how to make love because the only way they'd survive would be if someone came to save them.

Yet, despite all that, they still gave each other what they could give, came themselves dry in the fever dream of keeping their loved one alive. Because that was what this was. She loved him. She loved him more than a brother, more than family, more than a lover. They weren't doing this for their bodies anymore. It was a mental battle against every opposing force around them, pushing them down, begging them to just give up. She fed Pietro's willpower, his soul, his hope, and he did the same for her. They were too tired for words.

Soon enough, they were nearly too tired for actions.

"Are you tired?" she asked him as week three reached its middle.

"Yeah." He shut his eyes for a moment, opened them back up. His sharp cheekbones, that had been so attractive to her before, now hollowed out his face. She could imagine what she looked like. "But man, I don't know. I feel like I have all the energy in the world to eat." He chuckled. "I'm delirious."

"I feel the same way. I feel like…like what babies must feel. How nothing has meaning anymore. I just see food. Not even. Just…things I wanna…"

"…suck on."

She didn't now if that was what she was going to say. She hardly believed he meant it. Clearly, they were both delirious.

"Yeah," she said.

"Yeah."

They were dying. They were going to die. All because of one homeless shelter being in the wrong place.

He laid his hand on her clavicle. She had no idea what he wanted, but somehow she had an idea. She didn't know. She didn't care. She picked up his limp hand and nudged his fingers into her mouth. It hit her on a primal level, if not just a result of her totally losing her mind. She sucked his fingers, ran her tongue along his skin, took a finger between her teeth, gently bit down. In other other universe, this may have even been erotic. She knew that if either of them had more energy, someone would've suggested the sacrifice. What's human flesh to the mice?

But she knew she wouldn't bite down hard enough, even if she was physically capable of it. The part of her that had forgotten about the mouse's face wasn't going away now. There was some comfort in this. Maybe it was something infantile, like a pacifier. God, that sounded strange. Maybe that was what dying felt like, losing meaning to everything and just ending with nothing but simple nerve signals to the brain. Something in mouth = comfort. Nothing more.

She tired out quickly, pulled out his hand. She let him do the same thing. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them looked at each other.

Maybe they'd done this as babies. She didn't know. Mama and Papa had never talked about it. Babies sought comfort in sucking their thumbs and fists, and if they were placed in the same crib, why wouldn't the other's hands end up in the wrong mouth sometimes? God, she was crazy. She was crazy, but she didn't have the energy to care.

At least if they died, they'd die like they spent their first few months of life: together, finding comfort in nothing more than each other. Maybe they'd even die the way they came into the world: ten minutes apart, unaware of the world they came from or the one they were about to enter.

She pulled Pietro close, so every possible inch of skin and clothing was touching. She latched onto him, waited for him to do the same. Legs stacked hers on his on hers on his, elbows bent, palms resting on upper backs, foreheads against each other. They made eye contact for the briefest second.

"I love you," she said. "Just you. Forever."

"I love you too. Just you. Forever."

She closed her eyes, and waited for the end.

#

Everything after that seemed so much less real than that night toward the end. There were hard knocks on the door, someone broke it down. The cold chilled her to the bone, but the sight of other people jump started her heart, almost made her think she'd have a heart attack from the relief. They took two men to each of them, walked them out. Put them in a car.

They didn't take them to a hospital.

No, they took them to a homeless shelter.

One of them had begged for it. Wanda was pretty sure it was her. She'd bawled out the words, "they'll separate us please no please no you have take us somewhere else!"

By some miracle, they'd obliged.

The homeless shelter gave them cots, fresh clothing, water, and finally some broth. When they could hold that down, some milk. Crackers. Let them settle.

They knew they couldn't stay long, not without someone asking how old they were, but there was one question Wanda couldn't help but answer when a volunteer asked.

"How'd you two survive for so long?" she asked as she handed them porridge one morning after they knew they'd survive.

Wanda exchanged a look with Pietro, took his hand, and said, "We had each other."


	16. After

Wanda

Everything was in chaos. Everything had been in chaos the moment Wanda stopped hearing Pietro's thoughts, but that brief moment she'd killed Ultron and starting rising in that train car, everything had made sense. For just a moment, she had felt okay in an ocean of anguish and red hot pain.

Then, Vision had scooped her out, and he'd lurched her sanity out through her mouth, along with her stomach. It felt like that first trip with Pietro when Strucker made them use their powers together, except the sense of dread and disorientation was in her brain, and there was no way to push it out.

He settled her down onto an enormous flying platform covered in people, and Wanda suddenly had no idea what her life had become. She could feel herself slipping into panic, into a dark place she could never escape from. She needed Pietro. Where was Pietro? Where the fuck was Pietro?

 _He's dead._

She needed to find Pietro. She needed to find Clint, find Steve, hell, find fucking Tony. She'd take any of them. A familiar face, someone who spoke her language who could tell her that it was all in her head. Vision hadn't said a word to her, and it had terrified her. It was like he knew what she'd been seeing for the past few minutes.

Natasha, incidentally, was the first familiar face. Not the comfort of Steve or Clint, but a familiar face.

"Where's Pietro?" Wanda demanded, pushing herself to her feet.

A wave of dizziness overtook her, and she fell back to the floor.

"Hold in there. Let me get Clint and Steve."

Wanda didn't know why she obeyed. Natasha disappeared into the crowd. She wouldn't be surprised if she never found the Avengers again.

 _Pietro. Pietro, Pietro, Pietro_ , it was all her mind could spit out. What she'd give to just turn off her mind, go to sleep. This was just a bad dream. If she thought it hard enough, it'd be true. She'd wake up in the quinjet in Pietro's lap. He'd regale her in battle stories, and she'd tell him how she'd been brave enough to just fight. Maybe they'd join the Avengers, maybe they'd go off on their own with Tony Stark's compensation. Anything but this.

 _Pietro's dead. He's never coming back. He's never going to be a part of your life ever again. He's gone. You're broken, and no one can ever fix you._

When Clint and Steve approached, neither of them spoke. Wanda felt sick.

"Where is he?" she demanded. "Where's my brother?"

Clint continued to say nothing, and Steve finally spoke. "Wanda, I'm so sorry. Pietro—he—he was shot while saving some civilians. He died on the spot."

He died getting _shot_? No, they weren't talking about the same person. The Pietro she knew had stopped a bullet from hitting her in their first few months of training. There was no way he'd ever get shot. Never enough to die.

"Where is he? Let me see him," Wanda said. She felt tears burn in her eyes. "I don't believe you."

Even if she did.

Steve and Clint led her over to Pietro. He was lying on the dirt floor, unmoving, like he was waiting for medical attention. He was on the floor.

He was on the fucking floor.

What was this? How was this her brother? How had these people whom she had trusted so much just left her only brother on the floor? These people were all monsters, and they'd killed her brother. Like a cat bringing in a dead bird, shrug, _oh, he died in battle._

"No," Wanda snarled. "You let him die! You killed him! You call this a victory, act like nothing just happened, like you can just throw him away. He was my _everything_! Don't you get it? You lost. You just… _you just destroyed me_."

Wanda couldn't feel an ounce of restraint. Her hexes burned on her fingertips, fierce, wild, but she was finally ready to let her baby go free do as it pleased. Her eyes turned red, the hexes escaped her fingertips. She didn't pay attention to where they went.

"Wanda!" Steve said. "Wanda, wait! Please, I know how you feel. When I came out of the ice, I thought I lost everyone too. I know this helplessness, this pain. But I promise, it gets better."

"Pietro is the only one who can make this better," Wanda hissed.

"Hey, hey, we have that cradle!" Clint suddenly said. "How about that, kid? We'll give it a try. Put Pietro in there. Fix his wounds. You—You said he has a healing factor, right? Maybe he's not dead. We can try that."

It wasn't convincing. Clint was terrified.

But it was enough.

The hexes receded, her eyes stopped glowing.

"I'll go get the cradle," Clint said.

Clint ran. Steve put a hand on Wanda's shoulder. She knocked it off and dropped to her knees, to her the floor. She hugged him like a child hugs a parent, an oversized teddy bear. He was still a little warm, but he wasn't moving.

It was the best comfort she could get as the tears spilled out.

Nothing felt in her control anymore. She cried, laid there helpless as the tears turned to sobs, choked her until she was gasping for breath, shaking, gripping harder on Pietro, just waiting for a jerk response that was never going to come. It was like grabbing for a raft in the ocean and catching seaweed. She couldn't bear to look at Pietro, if she even could through the tears. She felt faint again, but something felt so wrong about losing consciousness here, knowing she couldn't wake up her brother next to her.

God, she couldn't wake her brother up. He'd never open his eyes again. His fingers would never curl around hers, she'd never see the color of his eyes again, see his smile again. She swore she'd already forgotten how many crinkles he got around his eyes when he smiled.

How was this possible? How was this…

She finally managed to suck in some air, and had completely lost her sense of time and space, down to not knowing her position to Pietro. She heard Clint and Steve return. They muttered to themselves, something about who was taking who. One of them—judging by the bulk, Steve—picked her up bridal style, the way Pietro used to. She buried her face into his shoulder, suddenly too scared to see Pietro as Clint surely threw him over his shoulder and followed them. Nothing made sense. Nothing was going to. She just had to get used to that.

#

They had Pietro in the miracle tissue cradle within four hours. He looked like a sleeping prince within two hours.

They sat around staring at a corpse for the rest of the night. No one spoke to Wanda, as if it was some big secret that nobody knew how to revive a corpse.

No, a vegetable at this point. They'd hooked him up to machines, rewinded the clock a few notches back. There was the illusion of breathing as they pumped air into his chest, she could put her hand on his chest and pretend his heart wanted to be pumping that blood, that it was reaching a functioning brain. But she knew. She knew more than any of them. There wasn't a soul in there anymore. He wasn't her brother anymore.

"Technology improves every day," Tony Stark said, shrugging, as he found her sitting over Pietro's corpse, rotting into a corpse right next to him. She hadn't left his side in three days. "And I've seen some crazy shit. Maybe all we need to do is prod in the right spot. Don't lose hope." He reached into his pocket and dropped a white iPhone on the bedside table. "I thought you could use that. It's got everyone's numbers programmed in. If anything, Nat and I will always answer. Okay, no, Nat and Clint will. Steve's still figuring out how to use it, but he'd like to be. You know how to use that?" Wanda nodded. "You have no idea how excited I am to have a millennial on the team. All the things you can teach me." Wanda furrowed her brow; she was getting too tired to be angry every time she saw this stupid man.

"Thank you," she managed to say. Her voice made her sound sick. Maybe she was. Or should be.

She managed to play with the damn thing for twenty minutes before she couldn't resist ignoring Pietro anymore. She set down the phone and took Pietro's hand.

"Can you believe it?" she muttered to Pietro in Sokovian. "It's what you always wanted, one of these stupid things." She snorted. "As if Stark thinks this makes up for everything, giving me toys." She browsed through the phone. Pietro's contact was already in there. Her heart leapt into her throat, and sank as she opened up a text. _I miss you so much. It feels like Ultron still has my heart, yet I feel him twist my guts every time I remember. I want to die._ She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Tony put a couple pictures he must've taken of us on his surveillance system on here." They were shitty, but they were all she had. "I'll get the one of Mama and Papa on there. I saved it. That, and your stuff. I have it all." She swallowed again. "Don't worry." _They won't kill you, and they won't let me die._ "I haven't taken off any of the jewelry you've given me over the years. Still consider that silly little band our promise ring." She smiled, but didn't know why. "You wouldn't mind me pretending it's a wedding band, would you?" _I love you, and miss you. Both hurt so much._

Wanda stiffened as the door opened. Clint. "Hey Wanda, Steve thought you might like a change of scenery. Your brother's not going anywhere." Wanda kept her gaze down. "C'mon, I want you to meet my family. I have a little farm in the country, and it's really peaceful. You must be antsy sitting here."

She had no reason to follow Clint, no reason she should spend any time with the reason her brother was dead, but she found herself rising out of her seat and following Clint. Still, nothing felt real.

#

Wanda fell asleep listening to Clint mumble about his farmland as he drove, seemingly boring himself more than her. She felt a little bad, but she hadn't slept since the Battle of Novi Grad. Clint didn't seem to mind.

The moment he stopped his truck, two kids and a very pregnant woman emerged from the house. The kids practically pushed each other out of the way to see Clint, and the wife slowly made her way over. Wanda had no idea why, but just the fucking image of Clint's pregnant wife had her eyes going misty. As if she'd ever even really considered having children a possibility, as if she envied the image.

Because that was impossible now, ever conceiving that image of herself, pregnant, happy, surrounded by kids and greeting a husband. She and Pietro would've made it work, she knew it. And there she was, standing between having lost her family and having her future family snatched away from her with one hail of bullets.

"Daddy, who's this?" the little girl asked.

"This is Wanda. She's from my work. I wanted her to meet you guys," Clint said as he gave his daughter a kiss.

The kids turned to Wanda, but no one approached.

"Wanda, this is my family." He introduced his kids as Lila and Cooper, his wife as Laura. She was having a boy, Nathaniel.

"I'll have lunch ready soon. It's so nice to meet you, Wanda," Laura said.

 _Didn't Clint mention two of them?_

God, even her powers wouldn't let her escape it.

Lila ran up to Wanda. "Daddy said you were a witch but you don't look like one. What magic can you do?"

Wanda had hardly used her hexes since Novi Grad. Not even that orb could save her from the crushing loneliness like with Strucker. But, she felt a strange duty to this child. Even if these children and this pregnant wife were, in some regard, why Pietro was dead now. Perhaps if Clint didn't have kids in his head, he wouldn't have run back for that child. She'd never know, but the thought would never leave the back of her mind.

She conjured a hex and watched as the child stared in awe.

"Are you a good witch like Glinda or a bad one?" Lila asked.

Neutral witch. Chaotic witch. Probably a bad witch, even if she'd helped save Novi Grad. Just not a good witch. A good witch would've been able to save Pietro. Wouldn't have almost caused the extinction of the human race in the first place.

"Lila, Wanda's a little down right now. Try not to ask her too many questions," Clint said.

"What's wrong with her?" Cooper asked.

 _Maybe I shouldn't have…_ Wanda wondered if Clint would remember that Wanda could read minds.

"Her twin brother died a few days ago," Clint whispered, as if Wanda couldn't hear him thinking that before he said it to his son.

Clint motioned Wanda over. "C'mon, let me show you around. Nat's coming later today, but don't feel inclined to do anything. I just thought you'd like a change of pace."

Clint showed her around, but she found herself settling for the most unassuming, unimpressive bit of field, just staring up at the sky while Clint's kids ran around and he attempted to fix a tractor. She felt like she should feel better than she did. She hadn't gotten sun in almost a week, and it was the perfect bath of it in Clint's yard. The kids weren't too rambunctious, just the right amount of cheering and laughing. No one was thinking about her.

Lila screamed.

Wanda sat up instinctually, searched through the girl's mind for her distress. She'd found a dead baby bird, fallen out of a tree. Clint and Cooper ran to Lila, started consoling her, tried asking her what was wrong. She couldn't speak through the crying.

"She found a dead chick," Wanda said, the anxiety from all the commotion so immediate and so impossible to fight without Pietro.

Clint looked down, picked up the bird. Wanda approached. It didn't look anything all that traumatic, just one of those sad mother nature deaths. Nothing like what she'd seen in Sokovia over the years. Still, Lila was upset, and that child's feelings were a hard barrage to keep away from Wanda. Being ten rungs below Lila in terms of sadness didn't help.

Something Wanda didn't care to catch caused the kids to run back inside, leaving Wanda with Clint.

"You gonna do something with the bird?" Wanda asked.

Clint exhaled. "She'll probably make me bury it. Let me go find a shoebox."

 _You get a shoebox for a stupid bird yet you leave my dead brother on the floor of a ship?_

Wanda ignored her usual dislike of picking up possibly disease-ridden things and picked up the bird. She looked up. There were still other chicks in the nest, chirping for their lost sibling. Just like her. She wondered what they'd do if she put the chick back in the nest. Would they jump? She'd wanted to, that day. She still thought about doing it. She didn't know what was holding her back.

The hexes seemed to glow on their own, dropped into the bird's little body. It glowed for a moment, got warm, but nothing that noteworthy. Wanda closed her eyes, wondering if she could read animals' minds too. They'd probably be better than humans'.

#

Wanda did her best to pick at the food Laura made, and found a comfortable position on the couch, half-watching some cartoon about kids possessing powers to control the elements with Cooper and Lila. Natasha showed up without a greeting, simply sat on the couch and pulled Lila into her lap.

"You thought about our offer more?" Natasha asked during a commercial break.

She was an Avenger now in spirit, but hadn't signed the papers.

"I can't see myself contributing anything," Wanda said. "These powers are too chaotic, and no one can teach me."

"You just need some structural means of harnessing it," Natasha replied. She glanced at the TV screen, now back to the show. "Your hexes could be wielded like any of these martial arts forms. I could teach you a bit if you'd like."

"I wouldn't want you to waste your time."

"It wouldn't be. No one's saying it, but everyone's pretty sure you have the capabilities to be the most powerful being on the team."

Clint eventually convinced his kids to go outside, and Wanda followed for no other reason than she didn't feel comfortable dozing off on Clint's couch. It was probably an old habit she still hadn't dropped from living on the streets, back when falling asleep on someone's couch could result in waking up to a gun to her face.

Cooper and Lila were now playing with some kind of ball. It instantly reminded her of all the times as children she and Pietro had played catch or whatever simple games they could come up with to pass the time. Sokovian winters were long, so any time outside in the sun was filled to capacity. They used to think they were so smart coming up with as many activities as they did. She wondered if Pietro could remember the name they'd called the game they made up where they—

 _Pietro's dead. You can't ask him anything._

She buried her face in her arms. She needed to get a grip. It would be too easy to fall into fantasies, delusions.

Even if she still hadn't given up on the delusion that she'd see Pietro's ghost the way she'd seen that dog's back in Sokovia. She knew she'd lose her mind one day believing that one.

Wanda watched as Cooper threw the ball too high and it landed on the roof. Cooper instantly ran to the side of the house, started climbing the gutter.

"Wanda, come up here!" Cooper yelled.

"I'm not climbing the gutter," Wanda replied.

"Don't do that! Just use your witch powers and fly!"

"I don't have witch powers. You have hardly seen me do anything. You can't assume—"

"You're being stupid about your powers. Come up here I wanna show you something."

He held out his hand, and she swore for a moment, she saw a young Pietro calling up to her after he climbed another stupid tall tree or hopped a fence.

Wanda eyed the jump. It was at least fifteen feet up to the low roof he'd climbed to. "I really can't—"

"Just try."

Wanda bit her cheek. She could lift objects with her hexes. Could she lift herself? The hexes were kind of like controlled energy. Maybe use it the way Stark flew?

At least if she broke her neck she could stop thinking about Pietro.

God knows it was a _brilliant_ idea, but Wanda found herself thinking of that little arrow head kid from the cartoon they'd been watching. He always looked so beautiful when he did big jumps like this with his airbending. She definitely couldn't do anything that elegant, but there was probably something to be said about how streamlined he made his body.

She took a few steps back, gave a short running start, and blasted as much energy into hexes facing the ground as possible.

For a moment, she swore she was going to smack into the roof and fall back to the ground, but she cleared it, landed facedown on the roof tiles.

"See, you did it! That was so _awesome_!" Pietro said to her in that pre-pubescent squeal she'd made fun of for years.

He smiled at her, his blue eyes sparkling.

Wanda rubbed her face and sat up.

 _Pietro's_ —

She'd accidentally closed her eyes while jumping, and she couldn't quite believe where she was.

Had she just…flown? Or propelled herself, whatever.

When Wanda looked to Cooper, his expression turned to the same dumbfounded expression she wore. He was Cooper again. Definitely Cooper.

"That wasn't normal?" he asked.

Wanda shook her head. She looked down. Lila was yelling something about a bird, and she had no idea how to get down. She was losing her mind, her powers were growing, and she had absolutely no idea what to do.

#

She signed the forms to join the Avengers. Numbly, she let them tailor a new uniform to her, practiced her little levitation trick, got good enough to bounce around the Avengers facility like a magic-charged kangaroo. Natasha started training her to use it in practical situations, like jumping between buildings.

Vision tried to apologize for upsetting her after the battle, and she still hadn't gained enough energy to explain suicide to him. As if she even owed him an explanation.

"Can I ask you something I've been putting off for a while?" Steve asked as they walked around the Avengers facility.

Pietro had been in a forced coma for two months. Clint's son had been born, and he'd given him the middle name Pietro. He thought it would make her happy, but it had only left her locked inside her room destroying her surroundings with hexes hating the fact that another Pietro was alive when hers wasn't. People whispered about her being "uncontrollable," "unstable," and "half mad."

"My resignation?" Wanda muttered.

"No." He paused. "The necklace you wear. The Jewish one."

Wanda's chest tightened. "What are you asking?"

"Are you religious?"

"Never in a…traditional sense. Our parents were very religious, told us we'd get kicked out if we didn't have a b'nai mitzvah…" She sighed, found herself smiling, like the lunatic she'd become. "We didn't have a b'nai mitzvah, if you can believe it."

Steve's expression was blank, but he was too polite to ask what she was talking about.

"Did you know?"

Steve was surprisingly good at not saying his complete question because he knew she'd fill it in. It just reminded her of Pietro and made her chest hurt. "No. Trust me, my family's history runs too deep with the Holocaust to ever have considered working with Nazis."

"I fought in Germany, but I was never allowed to do the real work some of the men got to do. Actually liberating the camps. Granted, when I was around, no one really knew what Hitler was doing. But when I found out," he shook his head, "God, I hope nothing like that ever has to happen again."

"I think you have a pretty common sentiment."

Steve smiled a bit, the way adults smile at snarky kids. She just had to keep reminding herself that he was a dinosaur. "How did you find out?"

Wanda exhaled. "Pietro and I were sneaking around the basement. We found a secret room, opened the wrong drawers, found Nazi armbands and papers stamped with it. Went another level down and found incinerators and the other volunteers' clothing. It was days before we left. We weren't idiots."

"I never said—"

"Don't think you can hide anything from me, Rogers."

He hesitated. "I don't. But this isn't supposed to be about me. I wanted to know more about you. You said your family were in the Holocaust. Would you feel comfortable telling me how?"

It hurt so much less to talk about them, dead for decades. The thought of Pietro ever being that numb in her mind made her sick.

"We had at least one grandparent on both sides in the Holocaust. On our dad's side, our grandmother was Roma, sent to the camps, and a Nazi officer took a liking to her. She was removed from the camps, became a secretary. He raped her every night from 1943 to the end of the war. He was taken away, hanged, and she gave birth to a fair-haired, blue-eyed baby, our father. Our maternal grandparents had a more typical story, I suppose. Just Jews, living right in Nazi territory. Taken near the end of the war, sent to Auschwitz. They met there when everyone was freed, and decided to flee to Soviet territory as Nazi Germany fell. Fled to Sokovia. Raised our mother there. Our dad was on his way to Russia when he met our mother, and they decided to stay. The Soviet Union had just fallen, and things were looking up for the states the USSR controlled. We never knew Hydra was associated with the Nazis and the moment we did, we left."

Wanda looked to Steve, who was giving nothing more than a shake of his head. His mind was running through old memories, textbooks he'd read, emotional tides, particularly linked to the rape. Pity. A lot of pity. She picked her necklace out of her shirt and ran her thumb over the star. She hadn't prayed to God much lately.

"Do you want me to explain what a b'nai mitzvah is, or is this subject still appealing to you?" Wanda said.

"No. Or, well, I do want to know about that, but I just—I don't know, it makes so much sense to me, that you are Jewish, that you have this history." Wanda quirked an eyebrow. She hadn't really been angry in a while; maybe it'd feel good. "To me, what I've always known about the Jewish people is this story of perseverance and a fearlessness to adversary. It's like the people have a wall they've built around them, and nothing that ever happens stops that core identity. Strong flames, impossible ones to snuff out." He looked to Wanda. "When I met you, I saw that. They always say survivors are the most dangerous people on earth, because they know they can survive anything."

"Good thing the monster's gotten cut down to shape," Wanda muttered.

"No." He put a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened, but didn't throw him off. "I want to see that flame in your eyes again."

Wanda knocked him off. "Then invent a time machine. Alchemy. I'm sure your beloved Stark will get right on that."

"Wanda, I—"

"You don't give two shits about Pietro and you only want me as a weapon. I know. If you aren't thinking it, everyone else is. Talking nice to me and getting to know me won't change that." The tears were falling again. "There's no one to get to know. I died with him. So," she sniffled, "congratulations, you all got your wish. The asshole's dead and the demure one finally has a little _spark_."

She stopped thinking. She ran into Pietro's room, slammed the door behind her and dropped her head onto his chest to cry for the millionth time. She couldn't keep doing this. She didn't know how to be enhanced. She'd lost everything in Novi Grad, and every time she'd ever lost anything—a tooth, her favorite stuffed animal on the streets, her mother's necklace with the red gem—Pietro had brought it back.

Who the hell was going to bring Pietro back? Who was going to bring her sanity, humanity, and soul back? They didn't _get it_. They tried to console her with stories of dead siblings, dead parents. No one ever consoled her with the story of a dead lover. Of a dead family—mom, dad, brother, husband, and children all dead in one. Everyone said she needed time, that the human soul could survive anything.

It couldn't. It just couldn't. She couldn't. Everything was gray to her. No one could ever compare to Pietro. She knew that. She _knew_ that.

There was a knock on the door.

Tony and Helen Cho. The medical team for the comedies.

Neither one of them were smiling.

"Wanda, would you mind…sitting down?" Tony said.

She was already sitting.

"We uh, we all talked, and…have you ever watched those soap operas where the dude's in the coma and—?"

"We all know we're pumping breath into a corpse," Helen Cho said. "I know you aren't an exception."

"But, we want your consent first," Tony said.

They wanted her permission to kill him once and for all. _Consent?_ What did they think she was going to say? _Go for it! Throw me an ax while you're at it! We should make sure he's good and dead!_

Wanda stood up. "Talk to me in a few hours."

She walked out.

Her phone pinged. A text from Clint.

A photo of Nathaniel. He wore a shirt with his name embroidered on it. Nathaniel Pietro Barton. An innocent child who was cursed with the middle name of a man and the last name of that man's killer. That poor kid didn't deserve to live with Wanda thinking that. How damn easy would it be for him to live in a world where he was named after two heroes, plain and simple? No crazy sister of the namesake. Let the kids take over.

She was done.

No powers, no unanswered questions, no glimpses of hallucinations or shots of joy from discovering a new power was worth this. She wasn't happy. She never would be. She never would let herself be. How on earth she'd survived for as long as she had was a miracle.

Yeah, Tony would have his answer in a few hours. Tony, Steve, Natasha, and every other member of the Avengers 2.0.

Wanda was resigning.

She walked into the kitchen and started making a smoothie. She had to be smart about this. The Avengers didn't keep guns around. Knives were imprecise. Her stupid levitation would keep her from properly jumping off a roof. She didn't know how to prepare a proper hangman's knot. And as for pills, she'd have to trick her body for that to work. Carbon monoxide would take too long. And, truthfully, she was terrified of a long, hard death that didn't work.

She picked out pill combinations as she tossed the banana, yogurt, milk and Oreos into the blender. She and Pietro had had to search hard as children to find Oreos when they lived with their parents, and Strucker had ordered Wanda a whole case of them back when he loved them. It seemed pointedly appropriate. For someone who believed her whole life that she'd die from a lack of food, let her die drinking a fucking Oreo milkshake. Pietro would've laughed.

Natasha came in as she blended the wholesome ingredients together.

"Good to see you eating without being prompted," Natasha commented.

Wanda shrugged. "What are women if not vehicles for irresistible cravings?"

Natasha snickered, stole an Oreo, and dropped an extra into her blender. "You deserve it."

She did.

She transferred her drink to a cup, poured in some Kahlua, cleaned up, and grabbed the bottles of Advil, Unisom, and Dramamine. No one was sick, and everyone stole the Advil all the time. It'd be an expected loss.

She crushed half the bottle of Advil, all of the Unisom, and four Dramamine. She poured the dust into her drink, straw-stirred, and took her first sip.

Couldn't taste the drugs. Good.

As she sucked down her little cocktail, she walked into the bathroom, closed the drain, and started drawing herself a bath.

She finished the shake in five minutes. It hurt a little, but nothing out of the ordinary. Just another trait left from being homeless.

She was surprised by how little nausea came out of the drink. She knew she'd mis-measured some ratio in there, but she didn't feel awful. She sifted through her photos, through the little picture Pietro had kept of their parents. She would've kept holding it, but she didn't want to get it wet.

She sent a single last text to Pietro. _See you soon, my everything._

She moved into the bathroom to turn off the tap. The water was warm, a little hotter than comfortable, but nothing she couldn't get used to. This was all about luxury.

The one decision she'd left until her head got fuzzy was whether or not to step into that tub naked. It was stupid, but she felt strange letting these still pretty near strangers find her naked. She'd only ever let Pietro see her like that. It would be a joke she didn't think Pietro would find very funny. But she…she didn't really know. Maybe she should. Who got into a bath clothed?

At least not with pants on.

Mind growing hazier and hazier, Wanda changed into a nightgown that might've been a piece of lingerie she never got rid of. She couldn't tell. Could hardly tell what color she was holding, whether or not she remembered to remove her socks as she stepped back into the bathroom.

This was stupid. She should just take off her damn clothes. Pietro could scold her in the next life.

She grabbed chunks of her nightgown, eyes on the shimmering water. Her eyelids were so heavy, she couldn't remember what she was doing. She felt each sense go. Her connection to her hexes, the smell of the soap, the taste of the shake, the feeling of the nightgown in her fingers, the sounds of her heartbeat, the sights of the bathroom.

Somehow, though, she knew when she hit the water and sunk under.


	17. Death Grip

Wanda

Wanda knew she hadn't died; the afterlife couldn't possibly feel this shitty.

She woke up slowly, first with that tiny warm, almost humming connection of her hexes. She heard a cocktail party's worth of thoughts, but they were whispering, as if trying to not wake up a baby in the next room over. Too soft to understand without concentrating. Then, she felt her body, the soreness, pockets of ache on her head, side, seemingly random places. She was cold. She felt empty, but it didn't keep her stomach from roiling.

She opened her eyes and shut them almost immediately, sensitive to the bright lights against the white walls. Finally, she heard actual voices. Two males and a female. Steve, Natasha, and assumedly some doctor Wanda had never met.

"How ya feeling, kid?" Steve said when Wanda opened her eyes again.

"Awful," Wanda replied.

There was a Russian word that Sokovian had borrowed, _toska_ , that described a deeper pain than what English could describe, but Steve wouldn't get it. She would likely never tell Natasha.

"Well, you had a rough night," Steve said. "But you're going to be fine. The doctor can't even find signs of organ damage."

 _Miraculous._

"You're welcome, by the way," Natasha said. Her arms were crossed, but her face was relaxed. Her thoughts betrayed her annoyance. "If Steve hadn't asked about you as soon as I passed by him, you would've drowned."

What, did they think she'd done it mistakenly? That it was some move of rebellion, that she hadn't 100% wanted to die?

"That was the point," Wanda muttered.

"Wanda, we get it. You're…depressed, hopeless, but we want you to move past this. You don't have to be grateful, but please don't start—"

"I didn't ask for you to adopt me. I didn't ask Clint to save the life of a misplaced gob of some john's cum who'd end up a juvenile delinquent anyway. I didn't ask Pietro to forget everything we'd ever promised each other in a moment of _heroism_. If you think I owe anything to you guys, you're the crazy ones. I wanted to die. I'm not going to thank you for keeping me from what I want."

"I know. I know no one wanted this to happen, but it happened and—" Steve continued.

"And you haven't even so much as _apologized to me_! As if Clint actually thought I'd think him giving some infant of his Pietro's name would be enough to make up for his loss. I don't want to be here. I never have, ever since I saw what you do to have each other's backs. I wanted out. Is this slavery? Are you going to keep me in your fucking group until one of us dies? What, am I menace to society, and that's why you've kept me? Got a cage for me like Strucker said the Hulk had? Banner had the right idea in running away."

 _Jesus, you'd think she woke up from a twenty-minute nap two hours ago._ It was the nicest thought Natasha had beyond her internal mutterings of, _ungrateful little shit_.

"Wanda, we never tried forcing you onto the team. You were homeless and with no one. What kind of people would we have been if we left you? Of course we took you in, and how we're just trying to help you. There was nothing any of us could've done about Pietro."

"Yeah, unless you can control probabilities, little witch," Natasha said. "Because that's what it came down to. We were in battle, and we could've changed a million things to prevent his death, but it didn't happen that way. Are you really going to sit here and argue about us not caring for him or you? We've been keeping him on life support for months! We spent a whole night un-waterlogging you and pumping whatever sludge you ingested out of your body!"

"You were gonna kill him!" Wanda shouted, tears brimming in her eyes. "You were just gonna kill him! You think I just decided to kill myself? You said you wanted my consent but you didn't care! You would've killed him the moment I left the room if you thought it'd be safe." It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea if they'd pulled the plug on Pietro while she was out. "For all I know you already did it."

Her last words came out as a whimper, all her anger dissolving in a moment of absolute dread and terror. They might have already killed Pietro, and now they definitely weren't going to let her die. She couldn't do it. She couldn't survive another sixty years without him. Even if Steve died in the next five years because he was ninety she couldn't imagine it. She couldn't imagine making it to the end of the year.

And then, the tears were flowing, and all the snappy thoughts in Natasha's head disappeared; their expressions softened.

"We didn't." Everyone looked over to find Tony, a tote bag hanging off his wrist. "Pull the plug on your brother, I mean. He's still vegging out. I was sitting there when everyone rushed you into the ER and I swear he jumped. I was also on major caffeine pills, but still, freakiest thing."

Everyone stared at Tony for a moment. For once, even Steve seemed to be judging Tony.

"Is that all?" Steve asked.

"Actually," Tony set down his bag, "I wanted to talk to Wanda."

That was possibly the first time Tony had called her by her name and not "Scarlet Witch," "the witch," "little witch," "wiggle hands," and "Amy Lee."

Steve and Natasha scrutinized him.

"It's for a serious purpose," Tony said, sighing.

"We have to talk anyway," Steve said as he and Natasha left.

Yeah, they were clearly looking out for her.

Wanda slowly trailed her gaze to Tony. She didn't speak. She was tired, nauseous, upset, and seeing Tony was generally inciting everything further.

Tony adjusted his bag before finally making eye contact. "Try to take it easy today. You may still feel kinda hungover even without anything in you. It's normal. Those stomach pumps are rough, and considering Rogers and Romanoff were in charge, I wouldn't be surprised if they just punched you until they got results."

 _What?_

"When I was younger, hell not even that long ago, I mixed some pill and booze cocktails. None of them worked. Some were just stupid attempts, others I had to have people like Rhodey save me. I know what it's like to be suicidal, to be mad at people for ruining it for you."

Wanda found herself staring blank at the man she'd hated for so many years. He was genuine, his thoughts matching up exactly what he was saying. The memories that prompted the words flashed through—a car accident, empty houses, pills, booze, sometimes one dropped into the other haphazardly, all laced with that despair. He did know that. She didn't know what to do about it.

"How do you want me to respond?" Wanda asked.

"I just wanted you hear it. We're not so different, you and I."

"You sound like a warning commercial for suicide."

Tony shrugged. "Like I said, I know what you're going through. You should steam off within the next few days. And, if you decide to, I'm around to talk." Tony got up, pulled…a portable CD player and a stack of CDs out of his tote. "Here. I hear this is how the kids deal with their feelings nowadays."

He slid everything over to Wanda, and it took all her might to not say anything. _Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge_ , _Riot_ , _Fallen_ , _In Love and Death_ …actually, the entire My Chemical Romance discography.

Tony was gone before she could think to voice any sort of response.

Steve and Natasha returned to the room.

"What'd he give you?" Natasha asked.

"I have no idea," Wanda replied.

#

"You don't find this a little unnecessary?" Wanda asked Natasha as they scuttled around Wanda's bedroom that night, now filled to brink with both their stuff.

"You're on suicide watch. I'd find keeping you in the medical ward tied to your brother as unnecessary," Natasha replied.

Wanda glanced around the room. "There's only one bed!"

"Would you rather share a bed with me or Steve?"

Wanda scowled. Sure, the Avengers were a group of smart people, but talking with Natasha was like a mind game; she always knew what to say, as if she was the mind reader.

And, at the very least, even if she wasn't happy in any way, shape, or form with this arrangement, she didn't feel all that uncomfortable changing in front of Natasha. Plus, even after doing nothing all day, she was exhausted.

She climbed into bed, scooted to the polar opposite side as Natasha. It didn't do much. Someone had mentioned that the bed was a queen, but it seemed more like a full. She could feel Natasha's body heat. There was no way this arrangement could last.

She stole a glance at Natasha. She wasn't bothered in the least, pulled out an e-reader.

"You worried about something, Maximoff?" Natasha asked, not looking away from her book. "Tell me if you shoot hexes or stir up minds in your sleep. I'll get my protective gear."

"No, it's not—" Wanda studied Natasha. "Are you even going to sleep?"

"Nope. I'm the night shift."

 _God_ , what was this?

Wanda turned onto her side, away from Natasha. Maybe if she pretended hard enough she could ignore her. Fucking Steve and his fucking suicide watch. This wasn't making her want to kill herself any less.

Natasha hit the lights, and Wanda shut her eyes.

At least she fell asleep quickly.

 _We can't let anyone know._

She felt like it was the first time she'd heard his voice. It must be, the way it made her shiver. It was dark, she couldn't see him. But she knew exactly where he was from the way his breath tickled her cheek. He spoke Sokovian, for the first time in so long.

 _I don't need them to understand. I need them to know, though._

 _They won't…_

 _I love you. I love you too much to let them think I didn't. Maybe they'll_

 _They'll never_

 _I love you._

 _"It's gonna be okay."_

He was so warm. God, she missed his warmth so much more than she remembered. As his words rang in her head, she snuggled closer to him, until every inch of her skin felt the heat of every inch of him. She wished she could just melt into him, so they'd never have to be apart again. She clasped his hand, smiled, fell into a peace she'd forgotten existed as he gently rubbed her back.

 _#_

Wanda surprised herself. The worst part of figuring out that she'd been unconsciously cuddling with a very awake Natasha wasn't the fact that she'd been cuddling with Natasha. It was that it hadn't been Pietro. That she had to wake up to find her fingers around someone else's hand, sharing someone else's warmth.

The day stumbled on. Steve collected Wanda almost immediately after she got up, and she went through the drudgery of being an Avenger. She kept a mental line on Tony and the medical team, just to make sure they weren't trying anything funny. No one was, but it only made Wanda feel more paranoid. Paranoid, tired, sad. They kept telling her that she had to go find out what made her happy and do it, but she had never been happy without Pietro by her side. How could anything be enjoyable without him? How could she possibly enjoy anything without being overwhelmed with guilt over having it without him? Every minute past those twelve minutes without him had felt like a step deeper into a torture chamber. She shouldn't live in a world where she'd had so much time Pietro could never have.

"You love him, don't you?" Natasha asked as they prepared for Night 2.

"Yeah."

They were only ever talking about Pietro.

"But not just in that family way. Not even in a die-for-each-other family way. In a romantic way."

Wanda didn't know why, but she felt herself blushing. As if their love what somehow lesser without him to defend it with her. "Yeah."

Wanda waited for a comment. But Natasha was silent from her lips to her mind.

Wanda scoffed. "What, you're not going to say anything? You don't think it's disgusting?"

Natasha shrugged. "I've seen enough horrible shit in my life; consensual incest doesn't have quite the bite." Natasha paused. "Which I'm assuming, the incest part."

Natasha quirked a brow.

"Yeah," Wanda said.

Another pause.

"That asshole was pretty. If my brother had abs like that, I'd probably fuck him too."

Wanda didn't know what it was, but Wanda found herself smiling. "Yeah."

Natasha smiled back, let it fade as quickly as Wanda's did.

And, just like that, the tears were burning her vision. "It wasn't just for the sex." She almost smiled again, but choked it down. "We were in love. We needed each other. We wanted each other. We just—it's not just—you keep telling me everything is going to be okay, but it's like I'm already dead. Everything's gray, everyone and everything seems inferior, and I feel like I can never be happy ever again. When I think of Pietro's body on the floor of the helicarrier, I don't just see him. I see our parents, the little boy I grew up with, the man I love, any children and future we could've ever had. All of them pummeled in bullets and discarded on the floor. Can you blame me?" She wiped her eyes. "God, why am I even telling you this? You clearly care less than Steve, and he only cares because he's too good not to."

"You know it's not like that."

"How do I really not? You're a spy. Your entire job is being able to lie."

"Can't you read minds? I feel like that debunks that."

Wanda shrugged. "The way I feel, I wouldn't be surprised if my powers are waning. I swear everything's been muted since he died."

"Keep your head up, Baby Bear. You can't stay numb forever. Eventually, something's gotta give, and it's not gonna be you."

Wanda decided to not ask why the hell Natasha had just called her Baby Bear.

#

"Wanda!"

Weeks gone by, and Natasha's "give" had still not given. Wanda looked up from her place in the outdoor area of the Avenger facility. The view was beautiful and she hated to admit it, but Tony's stupid CDs were calming.

She looked up from her little meditation to find Thor and Vision. The two were the oddest couple; Thor wasn't around much, but when he was, Vision stopped floating among the Avengers and clung onto him. Maybe they had some father-son connection from when Thor helped kick-start him. It might've been cute if any functioning relationships didn't make Wanda nauseous.

"What?" she asked, monotone.

"Vision told me that you have more powers than mind scrambling and the hexes," Thor said.

Wanda had been talking to Vision lately. Unlike Natasha and Steve, he didn't understand emotions, so she could just talk to him objectively. She'd complain to him about her powers, and he'd analyze them in some cosmic context. It was a welcome distraction. Vision never forced her to be sad so he could tell her how she should try to be less sad.

Wanda shrugged. "I saw a dead dog's spirit once. Sometimes I see bodies of water or buildings that aren't there. Why?"

"Are you not interested in why you seem to have so many more powers than your brother?" Thor asked. Wanda cringed hearing the word, "brother." Thor didn't notice, or chose to ignore it. "I feel as though there must be some power of your brother's that no one saw, similar to what you spoke with Vision about."

Wanda looked away. "What kind of power?"

Thor exchanged a look with Vision.

"Didn't you mention he had a healing factor?" Vision asked. "Why would that have not worked when he was shot?"

Wanda shrugged. "It happened too fast."

Thor quirked a brow. "Too fast for a speedster?"

Wanda crossed her arms. "If you have something to say, just say it."

"Well, we were thinking that maybe, since Vision has the mind stone, perhaps if he shot Pietro it could jumpstart that healing factor he should have."

"His body was fixed by the cradle."

"A healing factor, with the kind of power he could've gotten from the mind stone, should have fixed his brain as well."

Wanda exchanged looks with Vision and Thor. Somehow, their ideas…made sense. Vision's gemstone was amazingly powerful. Somehow, she and Pietro had survived among hundreds of volunteers from its power. Why would Pietro just die? Maybe it did just need to be activated.

For the first time in so long, Wanda felt a pull to get up and do something. Something good.

"Let's go," Wanda said, grabbing onto Vision's arm.

Within minutes, Thor had stirred half the Avengers, including Tony, Steve, Clint, and Natasha. Excluding Tony, they all huddled in a corner and forgot that Wanda could read minds, knew every word of their, "why is he getting her hopes up?"

"Am I allowed to give you other status reports, or will you make me explode?" Tony asked. Wanda furrowed her brow. "At this point, if someone's comatose, they're not gonna wake up. Even if there's nothing going on up there, his body is suffering from this. Sores, infections, nothing pretty. If magic can't bring him back, I'd wager he's really gone." Tony paused. "I'm sorry."

Wanda took a deep breath. "If this doesn't work, if magic can't fix him, you can pull the plug."

Because it wouldn't come to that. This would work. This was the magic that created them. It'd fix him. It had fixed her, back in Strucker's lab after she'd tried to bludgeon her own head in. Pietro was too powerful to just die of bullet wounds.

Thor moved to the foot of Pietro's bed, Vision to his right, Wanda to his left. She took Pietro's hand. She prayed, even if she wasn't sure she even believed in a God.

A beam of yellow light escaped Vision's gem. It came out slower than she'd seen it before, seeping into Pietro rather than being shot. She was thankful for it; she didn't think she could handle watching him get shot.

As her chest tightened, she focused on Pietro's face. She knew she'd know first. It wouldn't have to be a thought, wouldn't have to be the twitch of a facial muscle. She'd just know. She'd finally get a fill of that pit that had been so empty in her life. More than a starving man at a feast, more than a tortured POW finally getting a wink of sleep. It would be like being shaken awake after a bad dream, a smile in an immersion of despair. _Please, Pietro._

Vision stopped his beam, yet Pietro hadn't moved yet.

"Don't stop," Wanda said.

Vision started the beam again.

Nothing.

Everyone started to shift. The negative thoughts started trickling in.

"Wanda…"

She didn't know who said her name. It wasn't Pietro, though.

Vision stopped.

"I'm sorry, Wanda," Vision said. "We really thought…"

Why did Vision stop?

"Vision, why'd you—?" Wanda said.

"It wasn't working," Vision said. "I'm sorry."

They were all saying her name. They said Pietro. They said dead. Gone. Done.

Done.

They were done.

"We're not done!" Wanda shouted. "I'm not done!"

"Wanda, you…" Tony's voice came through the haze.

Done. Done, done, done.

 _Not yet. Not yet. Not yet, dear God._

The hexes slipped off her fingertips. Objects began to rise. She couldn't have cared less.

Wanda. Wanda, Wanda, Wanda, Wanda, _Wanda_! It didn't matter. Not so long as it wasn't Pietro saying her name.

She'd lost the strength to fight the blackness once the needle went in.

#

Out of all the places she never expected to return again, a drug-induced haze was definitely one of them. She couldn't even remember who'd kept the sedatives going after they knocked her out the first time. Only that a week had passed, but it felt like years. No training, either. Just dragging herself in and out of her bedroom and talking to those who'd listen about subjects she'd forget about almost immediately. The only time she wasn't medicated was when she slept, but the day's wears made her forget to be embarrassed when she'd reach out for Natasha and pretend she was with Pietro. Natasha never minded. She wondered if Natasha was scared to do anything otherwise.

When the funeral came, Wanda slipped into a black dress, put up her hair, and didn't take any medication. She tried for one second to convince herself that this had been a long process of pulling off a bandage. That she'd feel better once he was in the group and resting.

It didn't work.

She didn't listen to the eulogies. She didn't notice who came and greeted her, what they said to her. She didn't cry, either. These strangers didn't deserve even a glimpse into the pain she felt.

She followed the procession to the graveyard. The wrong graveyard, but it had been at her request. She didn't want him back in Sokovia with their parents. It seemed practical enough to everyone. It didn't seem any better, as Wanda stared down at the beautiful casket they'd placed her suit-clad brother's body in. It looked too big, too heavy, a cage for her wild brother.

 _You have to let him go._

A rabbi said religious dribble that Pietro would've hated.

 _He's gone. There's nothing left. You have to move on._

Pietro had never even believed in God. He'd always rejected their Judaism unless it was convenient for him. They shouldn't have a rabbi. They shouldn't have a casket. They shouldn't have a funeral.

 _It's what he would've wanted. For you to be happy._

This was all so fake. She and Pietro had had a more heartfelt funeral for their parents when they were ten on the streets, sharing half-memorized prayers and tossing bits of the bread they'd found into a fire.

 _You need to try._

"Miss Maximoff?"

 _It'll be okay._

Wanda looked up, and the rabbi was holding out a shovel. They wanted her to toss the first clump of dirt into grave.

 _Grave_. God.

This wasn't happening. This wasn't possibly happening.

Wanda accepted the shovel, and it shook in her grip. Steve and Natasha put their hands on her shoulders. She looked back; Steve nodded. As if he was saying _go ahead_.

 _Go ahead._

Wanda stepped forward.

 _Let him go._

She picked up a clump of dirt, lifted the shovel over the grave. All she had to do was turn the damn shovel.

She watched as she shovel shook, as the dirt spilled out. Someone said her name.

She shut her eyes.

 _No._

She felt the red when she opened them up again. She dropped the shovel, everyone so silent that she could hear it clatter down.

Her heart beat faster, and she couldn't even—the way her power grew, teemed, fluxed, she felt like a former self, one lovesick in Pietro's arms, about to orgasm.

It felt so much better to explode there, though.

Her hexes hit everything. Trees down, graves exploded, people ducking to avoid it. She didn't care. She couldn't hear, could hardly see. Besides the red, swirling all around her.

She lifted her arm and slammed it in a downward motion, and her hexes followed. The power surged through her—exhilarating, painful, maybe. She'd never felt this alive, ever.

Someone moved toward her, she sensed it.

She started to rise. Like the little kid from Cooper's TV show. Like the God Pietro didn't believe in.

 _Pietro. Pietro. My love, my life, my everything, I'll never…_

She'd destroy this funeral for him. She'd destroy the people who killed him, the country who wrong them, the world that failed them. She knew she could. She finally, finally, _knew_.

 _If we're burying Pietro, he's gonna be in a mass grave._

Wanda took a deep breath, felt the warmth and buzz of the hexes on every inch of her body. It was the most natural skin she'd ever felt. After trying to fight the chaos and confusion for so long, she needed to join it.

"Wanda?"

She looked down, and everything stopped.


	18. Finally Home

Wanda

She couldn't say it. It was suddenly all her mind was firing off, but she couldn't say it out loud.

Pietro was looking up at her, eyes squinting against the sun, sitting up on the velvet lining of the casket she must've busted open. She flipped between recognition and denial, her brain suddenly unable to process how they'd cut off his white hair and trimmed his facial hair down to almost nothing. Unable to process the twitch of his fingers, the intensity of his eyes staring up at her, the tug of a frown on the face that had been so expressionless for months.

She felt the energy wane, though, and she slowly returned to the ground. She still couldn't see anything around her. All but forgot it was there. It felt like being back in Sokovia again, when she'd reunite with Pietro after one of them ran off to gather more supplies. No one but him and her.

As soon as her bare feet hit the lining of the casket, she dropped into Pietro's arms. She gripped him so tight her arms ached, buried herself as far into his scent, his warmth, his life as possible.

He was alive. He was _alive._

She went from waning powers to full sobbing in what must've been seconds. The numbness and power from before was gone, and she felt every inch of her body—her aching chest, her suddenly congested sinuses, how shaky she was. But it felt amazing. She took control of her facial muscles just long enough to feverishly plant kisses all over Pietro's face: forehead, cheek,

mouth.

She didn't breathe as she kissed him, and only him kissing her back reminded her to.

He was here. He was right here, alive. Like nothing had changed. It should be impossible. He shouldn't be this perfect, this alive, his aware.

But he was.

And somehow, she'd done this.

He was alive. He'd been dead, but now he was alive.

He was alive, and she'd happily destroy the universe to keep it that way.

Finally, she believed it.

They kissed in ignorant bliss until Rhodey shouted, "WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?"

#

The Avengers called an emergency meeting, politely asked Pietro and Wanda to wait outside like well behaved children. Fortunately, Pietro was still not very well behaved.

"It may take you five seconds to run to the city, but their meeting won't last long enough to do anything and get back before they notice," Wanda said as Pietro snaked his arm around her, the two of them walking down the streets near Times Square.

Pietro smiled. "We'll see about that."

For a bit, Wanda just leaned closer into Pietro and ruminated in their anonymity. In a way, it was better than a locked room. Everything was real out here. She couldn't pretend Pietro wasn't really here so long as he kept accidentally bumping into people.

"So, how's America?" Pietro asked.

"They have their flag everywhere, portion sizes at restaurants are four times what a normal person needs, the sales tax isn't configured into anything when you buy it, they have giant gaps between the door and wall in stalls in public restrooms, they put ice in everything, they don't cook the yolk of their eggs and call it 'an American tradition,' and everyone is way too loud and cheery."

Pietro glanced around. "Do you have money?" He paused. "God, that sounds weird." She pulled out her purse and handed him a ten. "Shit, is this real? The last thing I remember is trying to save Clint's ass in Sokovia and now I'm in New York months later."

"You think this is weird for you? You've been dead for the past six months." She paused. "You're real, right? This isn't just some mind trick?"

He cupped her jaw. "Yes, I'm real." He pulled away, started walking to a hot dog cart. "Do I just ask…?"

Wanda gave Pietro a look. "Yeah, that's typically how ordering something works."

Pietro got to have his first American food and despite complaining about how unnaturally sweet the bun was, he seemed happy. He seemed happy; she knew she was happy. She was so happy she felt numb to the whole experience. She almost wished she could go to bed now so she could wake up and finally start living life having accepted that her life could go on now.

Wanda's phone started to ring. She fished the thing out of her purse, and Pietro took it immediately. Didn't look at the caller ID or anything, just answered in the cutest, "Da?" she'd ever heard.

She listened to Steve's words as they ran through Pietro's mind. Your basic "where did you go can you please get back here?" type stuff. Pietro, meanwhile, was nodding along, giving her exaggerated expressions. She couldn't hold back laughter.

"Yeah, we'll be home in a second. We're just at…" Pietro turned around, scanning the area for a landmark. Instead he found, "the giant billboard of Jon Snow!"

Pietro almost dropped her phone as he scrambled to accept apparently this most mind-blowing part of being alive in America with six months of nothing under his belt. He grabbed her hand and moved them over to a better spot directly across the street from the giant Jon Snow billboard they'd placed near Times Square.

"Dammit Wanda, how do you use this thing?" Pietro said, frantic.

Wanda laughed, put Steve's parental blubbering on speaker phone, and threw the camera up. She tried to snap a picture of him, but he pulled her into the photo and took a selfie. God, this didn't even feel like her own dream.

"Wanda I swear, wrangle your brother in and get back here! I don't care if you found Jesus himself."

Pietro took the phone back. "We're actually Jewish."

And hung up.

He handed Wanda back the phone and snapped about two hundred pictures of the damn billboard.

"So, what happened on the show?" Pietro asked. "It suddenly occurred to me I have a bunch of TV to catch up on."

"They dumbed down Jon's death and gave no hints of resurrection. I got mad and vowed to never watch again. That, or any TV show."

Pietro grinned. "I love how angry TV makes you now. Will you watch it again now that both of your babies are back?"

"I may be convinced to anything now that my baby is back."

"Good." He lugged her onto his back. "Hold on tight."

He ran them back to the Avengers facility, and God, even the queasy feeling of running with him felt good, felt better than a single second of her time without him. All the Avengers were waiting at the entrance to the backyard when they arrived, like angry parents. At least Vision looked more or less confused about why they were all standing out there.

"So Wanda," Tony said, stepping forward, "we came to an executive decision that since you have the capacity to both resurrect people and cause worldwide apocalypse we're gonna keep you with us to cover your legal cases when you get sued. You can keep your Frankenbrother. We'll give you the basic benefits of all Avengers—pay and health benefits, and if you choose to live in the Avengers Sorority house, you also get meals, shelter, clothing, stuff like that. We'd continue your training, loop your brother in on the deal. Your choice if he lives in your room. Otherwise, we can build him a nice doghouse in the backyard."

Wanda looked around, exchanged a glance with Pietro. "Yes?"

Tony clapped his hands together. "Perfect! I'm ordering Keen's to celebrate. There's a takeout menu on the counter. Circle your order and congratulations for confirming that even our own earth is weird beyond anyone's control."

And Tony walked away, everyone but Steve tapering off.

Steve glanced back at Tony, seemed to resist rolling his eyes, and planted himself firmly on the ground before saying, "What Tony means is that we think it'd be easiest for you two if you worked for us, and beneficial as well. We'd protect you guys, help you control your powers, but it's as much a job as you'd like. Just, if you do live here, you'd be closest to the action and have easy access to Tony's resources that he grants us. Wanda, do you…have any idea how you did that?" Wanda shook her head. "Because the one thing we can't make sense of is, well, Pietro had injuries when we put him in the ground. Bed sores, internal organ damage. It's one thing to revive him and him to be like a zombie, but he looks like…he was never shot at all. We think it's…"

"What, like I…?"

"Changed the reality of what happened to him." Steve paused. "We don't know. We don't, but we'd like to find out. And, everyone's happy to let you on the team. Both of you."

There were definitely some hesitations in Steve's mind, but he was being genuine.

"Yes," Wanda said. "I'd be happy to…actually join the group. Stay."

Pietro glanced at Wanda. "Were they good to you?" Wanda nodded. They had been, even if she's never acknowledged it. "Yeah, sounds good." He turned to Wanda. "Can I live in the house?"

#

In the most bizarre series of events, Wanda Maximoff found herself cutting into super expensive steak as she sat next to her brother who'd been dead for six months. Her companions were various American spies, a Russian assassin, a 90-something year old super soldier, a Norse god, an android, and a billionaire playboy who had politely explained several months late that he didn't have control of his company when his weapons killed her parents. Their topic of conversation had veered into the kind of conversation had seen occur in comedy movies.

"So, it'll take me a few days to get your uniform," Tony said, holding his fingers in a square in front of Pietro. "But I was thinking we do something blue, and cut a big old v into your shirt, but in the shape of a lightening bolt. That way, we could keep with the whole man-slut thing you had going on. I mean, for God's sake, Nat's catsuit revealed less nipple than that athletic shirt I gave you did."

Pietro stopped whatever work he was doing to his own food. "What?"

Pietro still hadn't gotten used to the full time ally-ship with Tony. Wanda figured he'd get used to it once he found all of Tony's toys and saw how innocuous Tony was.

Tony turned to Wanda. "Oh, by the way, you started a new religion."

Now it was Wanda's turn to say, "What?"

"Yeah, apparently a large faction of Jewish people thought you checked enough boxes to be the Jesus that Jesus never was. Congratulations."

She still hadn't seen the video someone had taken of her resurrecting Pietro, but apparently it'd gone viral and she was polarizing—either Jesus, apparently, or a menace to humanity.

"Can you tell them I'm not?"

"I dunno. Newest update is that feminist groups are flocking to you—female-led religion or something. And once those girls get on you, I don't think you can escape."

Wanda mouthed, "God."

Pietro nudged her. _You can just mass convince everyone it never happened._

She had missed the way he flawlessly moved between speaking out loud and thoughts.

"So, Pietro…am I pronouncing your name right?" Clint said.

"It's actually pronounced pee-trou."

Wanda gave him a strong enough look that Clint ignored him.

" _Anyway_ , so, I guess you're alive. That's cool. Not that your sister has revealed much about her, but…tell us about you."

Pietro swallowed the bite he'd been working on and put his arm around her. "I can do both. I'm the older twin, neither of us have an education past age ten yet Wanda seems smarter because she engages emotionally with books but I only read them for the violence and sex. Neither of us could read English characters but apparently Wanda learned how because she read street signs while we were in New York. So, congratulations to whoever took the time to teach her English, please teach me. I'm really hoping someone will marry me so I don't have to be an illegal immigrant, Wanda and I were actually really mad when Ultron didn't let us kill Strucker and I'm kinda hoping Wanda can revive him so we can do that, your bread is too sweet, and my hobbies include gymnastics and making fun of Wanda for her obsession with teen paranormal romances and _Phantom of the Opera_ the musical."

No one spoke for a second.

"I only heard the part about your sister being obsessed with _Twilight_ ," Tony said.

Natasha looked to Wanda and smirked. "Regret bringing him back yet?"

Wanda smiled. "Almost."

#

After dinner and being fairly grilled by the Avengers (mostly Tony), Wanda led Pietro to her bedroom. Relief unlike anything she'd experienced washed over her as she locked the door behind them.

Everything in that moment was right in the world. Her brother was alive, and she wasn't dreaming. He was more than alive—he was perfect, he wasn't traumatized, and she was alive as well. They had a roof over their heads and people who weren't going to abuse them. Maybe even people who had the capacity to become their family. There was no way it could be better.

Pietro was alive.

God, Pietro was _alive_.

For a moment, they were both stopped at the foot of Wanda's bed.

"What're you thinking?" Pietro asked. "I could do either way. You're the one who got to experience my time lost. Your call."

"I just want you as close to me as possible."

Pietro shrugged. "Wing it."

They crawled into bed, bare feet already stroking each other and hands clasped.

"I like that dress on you," he said as he stroked her hair with his free hand. "Is it bad to say I wasn't considering your apocalypse when I saw you?"

She smiled. "I'd be worried if you saw anything else."

He smiled back. "Ignorance is bliss, after all." He looked her in the eyes. "You're okay now, right? The stuff those guys were mentioning, the suicide thing…I'm getting queasy just thinking about it."

She cupped his jaw. "I was unhappy. I didn't…know how to live without you."

He took her hand. "Are you going to live now?"

"Of course."

"I don't—"

She shut him up with an urgent kiss, hands on his face, pulling him as close to her as possible. Close enough to feel each hair of stubble, feel how chapped his lips were, taste the dessert still lingering in his mouth.

"You're never leaving without me," she murmured before plunging back in.

Her hands went into his hair, down his neck, over every contour. Like riding a bike; she knew every inch of him even after the months apart. Her mind was swimming, caught somewhere between feeling the heat and life of Pietro's skin despite the shirt and tracing her fingers down his body like the shirt was a wall.

A shiver ran down her spine as Pietro started unzipping her dress. She helped him out as best she could, pulled off his shirt as well. Tossed it across the room. Slowly rolled his pants off.

His torso was perfect. No bullet wounds.

No bullet wounds but what Ultron had dug into her heart.

 _It's almost like he never died._

He was alive. He was alive, breathing, sweating, grinning, moving his hands along her bare skin. He was alive.

Everything was going to be okay.

Quietly, subtly, even, they slid each other's underwear off. Slipped on a condom. For a moment, they look into each other's eyes. She'd forgotten how blue Pietro's eyes were, how he did get those little crinkles in the corners of his eyes when he smiled.

"Ready?" he asked as he took her hand.

"I love you."

He kissed her. "I love you too."

He climbed on top of her, skin hot and smooth and perfect. Hands still together, he squeezed her hand a little as he entered, slow and steady. So unlike what she remembered of their last few impassionaied, impatient romps.

For a moment, Pietro stood still, let her really _feel_ that full feeling of them together. She could still remember the first time they'd ever connected, and how she'd been overwhelmed with a feeling of how right it felt to be together like that, like connecting two body parts could connect their souls again.

Filled with him, connected from interlocked ankles to hands, Wanda leaned up for a kiss, her free hand on his cheek. He was real. He was right here, with her, exactly where he was supposed to be. None of this was a dream.

She broke the kiss with a sob.

"What's wrong?" Pietro asked.

Pietro jerked as if to pull out, but Wanda held him down.

"I-I'm n-not uh-uhpssset," she blubbered.

He pulled her in closer, let her cry into his shoulder.

 _I'm just so happy. I'm just so in love. I can't let myself believe this is real._

When she managed to pull herself up, Pietro kissed away her tears. "It's okay. I think you're beautiful like this." He had tears running down his cheeks. "I'm really banking on you feeling the same way."

She laughed and swiped his tears off his cheeks, licked them away. His tears tasted just like hers. A no brainer. Something she should start taking for granted.

"You sure you want to do this?" he asked.

"Yes. I really want to."

They were both crying now, but neither of them moved to change that. Pietro took her hand again, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and he got to thrusting. They looked into each other's eyes this time, caressed each other's skin, worked to bump every bit of each of them into the other. Wanda came suddenly, knocking her like an ocean wave from those six months of imagining a dead guy running a waterproof vibrator against her skin too empty to pretend a human was touching her, watching her tears flow down the drain. Her voice sounded raspy, unused, muttering Pietro's name like a cult mantra until he came after her.

Pietro sniffled. "God, we must look like lunatics."

"Who's gonna see us?"

Wanda leaned over and started pulling up tissues nonetheless. With the oxytocin squirt fading, there was a tiny pull to the little details, like how her face was blotchy and both of their noses were running.

With everything more or less under control, Wanda sighed and nuzzled up into Pietro. God, she'd almost forgotten the texture of his skin, the way he smelled, the way his breathing and heart rate would slow down when it was just them.

"I missed you so much," Wanda said.

"We have plenty of time to make it up."

Pietro was about to go in for a kiss when the bedroom door opened. Natasha slipped in, glanced at them, and went back to her task. Nonchalant, she collected her stuff in a laundry basket, never even looking at them. They were under the covers, but Wanda was about 80% sure she was flashing Natasha.

"Don't mind me. Go on with your sinning," Natasha said.

Wanda didn't even have time to smile before Natasha was gone again.

Pietro sustained a fair amount of silence.

"Natasha seems like the kind of person who'd notice you masturbating in the shower and join in, and you'd kinda just go along with it because she's terrifying and gives a decent nonverbal argument."

Wanda supposed so.

Pietro's gaze fell on her. "Don't tell me that really happened."

Wanda finally got to laugh a little. "No, she never went so far as to jump into the shower while I was masturbating."

"Damn, ruined my fantasy."

She pushed him a little. "You're awful."

There was a pause. "So, are you God or something, or was I not understanding Thor right in the car?"

Wanda sighed. Thor's explanation had been hard to follow, but he really did seem convinced that she'd been hit with the reality stone as well as the mind stone during Strucker's experiments. How that made sense, she didn't know. What she'd do if it was true, she also didn't know. "I don't know. Not sure how to test it. Not sure I want to."

Pietro shrugged. "You can always conjure that Godzilla toy I lost when we were five and prove it that way."

"You mean that one you used to scare me with? Hell no."

He hugged her. "C'mon, I was dead it's my only wish."

"No!"

He held her tight, and somehow they didn't have to acknowledge the need and affection even as they teased each other. He kissed her shoulder, and Wanda noticed something on the dresser that wasn't there before.

"Nat left you a note," Wanda said.

"Me? Are you sure it's not a love note for you?" Pietro squinted at the paper. "I can't read in English."

Right. "'Quicksilver, be in training lab two by five am tomorrow. Wear clothes good for running. Natasha.'"

"Definitely a love letter for you."

"If you ask nicely, maybe they'll let you beat the shit out of Stark."

"Mmm, my life goal realized." He paused. "Hey?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. You know, for—"

"You're forgiven."

"Forgiven?"

Wanda winked. "Never choose Clint over me ever again."

Pietro grinned sheepishly. "To be honest, I don't—"

"And here, dear Vision, is up and personal human copulation…"

Suddenly, Vision and Tony were standing at the doorway. Vision wore that cute little "what is this human doing" look, Tony hands-in-pockets calm.

No one spoke as everyone made eye contact.

Tony was officially back to #1 asshole.

Wanda picked a book off her nightstand, some old classic she'd been too depressed to read, and tossed it to Vision.

"You wanted that, right?" Wanda said. Vision examined the cover and nodded. "Good."

She hexed Tony out of the room, and Vision scuttled out after him. Door shut again.

She took Pietro back in her arms. "So, as you can see, _someone_ will inevitably walk in on you masturbating in the shower."

Pietro laughed. "Looking forward to it."


End file.
